


Red Flags

by medea1313



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 02, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Beyoncé References, Eventual Smut, F/M, I don't think Claire would put up with that shit, Love Triangles, Multi, OT3, but everyone can agree Elektra is hot, plus lots of Matt Murdock armchair psychologizing, what if Claire and Matt were dating when Elektra showed up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:25:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6431692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medea1313/pseuds/medea1313
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt and Claire are already in a relationship when Elektra shows up and draws Matt into her Roxxon Corp troubles. Matt is conflicted. Claire is wary. Elektra is lonely. Everyone has a lot of feelings but only recognizes/acknowledges a few of them. Season 2 AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't get the idea out of my head that Claire would react to Matt's weird behavior very differently than Karen, so this is basically me playing that concept out. Plus I got frustrated with the obvious dichotomy in the love triangle presented, when Claire actually knows both sides of Matt, unlike either Karen or Elektra, which I think makes it a tougher choice. Not sure where it is going, or how close to the canon plot it will stick. Also it may become Matt/Elektra, I kind of like them too. Or all three together! Just going to see where it takes me.
> 
> First chapter is not terribly explicit but there is explicit sex in later chapters.

Claire knew something was wrong when Matt came in through her window only hours after she finished working yet another night shift, and with barely a "Yes?" "Yes." began fucking her like it was his last day on earth. Even for Matt Murdock, the world’s most unpredictable boyfriend, this was red flag behavior. Delicious red flag behavior, which she enjoyed to the fullest extent possible on two hours of sleep, but still, red flag.

After he managed to coax an orgasm out of her cranky morning body and came himself, driving her so hard into the mattress she was certain she’d have bruises everywhere if she ever managed to get out of bed again, he rolled almost immediately out of bed and began straightening his suit. His suit, which he had not even taken off. Also not reassuring behavior. Claire rolled onto her back to get a better look at him and decide if she should be worried enough to confront him about this now, or just let it go until she was actually awake.

“Good morning, dear,” she said, her voice croaky with sleep and just a little sarcastic.

He may have flushed a little at that. “Sorry, I — I knew I shouldn’t wake you.”

“So it’s okay to have sex with me but not talk to me?” Claire let her eyes drift closed. It was kind of nice in the dark. The back of her eyes hurt with fatigue, and her body hurt with the pounding it had just gotten, but in a sweet, liquid way, and she really should stay awake to talk to him about this, but she was so goddamned tired.

“I just needed you,” she thought she heard him say. She felt his lips on hers, soft and sweet now, and she tried to open her eyes, to reach for him.

“Why?” she asked, or meant to ask. Maybe the word did not make it out, or maybe he just ignored the question. His lips pressed against her forehead, her hair, his hand swept over her naked shoulder and then pulled the sheet up over her even though it was too hot to need it.

“Go back to sleep, Claire,” he murmured, and for once she obeyed.

 

Matt knew, objectively, that having sex with your girlfriend while thinking about your ex was not a good thing to do. In fact, it was in the realm of the truly sleazy, and he felt horrible about it. In his defense, it was clearly not as bad as actually having sex with his ex. Also it had not been premeditated. He had no idea that was why he went to Claire’s apartment after having breakfast with Elektra — he just went. He thought maybe he just needed to smell her, to hear her heartbeat and feel the warmth of her skin. He told himself, right up until he was unbuckling his pants and climbing into her bed, that he just needed to be reminded of how great she was and how great they were together.

But the truth was, Elektra was the sexiest woman he had ever not-seen, and fighting at her side had made him crazy, actually physically out of control like he was a fourteen year-old boy with his first erection. He hadn’t known he was using Claire to work out his anger and lust at seeing Elektra again, but that was the truth, the unforgivable truth: that as he fucked Claire face-down into the pillow he heard Elektra’s voice saying, “Matthew,” and he smelled her expensive perfume, not Claire’s lemon soap and antiseptic.

He wanted to confess to Claire immediately after, but she was half asleep and exhausted and he’d already been so unfair to her he couldn’t bring himself to make it worse. She was beautiful and brave and tough and more fragile than she would ever admit, and he knew it was at least a little bit his fault she was stuck working nights, punished for helping him and people like him. He wanted to take care of her but she would never let him.

He watched her sleep for a little while, castigating himself, and then left to go to work since he was already late. He’d confess all later, probably. He’d never been in a relationship like this before: making room for someone in his life, being made room for in hers. With Elektra, she _was_ his life — and then she was gone. How could he explain that to Claire without hurting her? If he told her the story behind his behavior this morning, would she hate him? Would it hurt her more than not knowing? After all, he hadn’t even touched Elektra, not in reality. She would be gone soon anyway. The better thing to do would be to use her to drive out the Yakuza once and for all, and once she was out of New York, maybe then he could tell Claire. In the meantime, he would control himself, think of Claire, do the right thing. He just had to be a better man.

 

When she woke up that afternoon she almost thought it had been a dream — it would not be the first time she had dreamt Matt coming through her window and fucking her in total silence — until she moved and felt the ache and stickiness between her legs and knew that indeed he had been here. There was a little stone on the bedside table that he left if he had come by when she was asleep. He knew she didn’t like flowers.

Claire picked it up and rolled it between her fingers, wondering what it was this time, and why she put up with this shit. If anyone else she had dated had come into her apartment without permission and woken her up after a long night shift just to work out his personal demons, and not even bothered to leave a note — well, no one else she’d ever dated would even try, so it was kind of a stupid hypothetical. She’d never given anyone a key to her apartment, but Matt didn’t need a key. But she’d never told him not to come in without an invitation. Why not? He was preternaturally good at sex, and that certainly helped, but she knew that was not the reason she let him wake her up. It also had nothing to do with the fact that he helped people; she was not a prize that got awarded to the best vigilante. It was because… because she loved him, she supposed, and because she trusted that he had a good reason for what he did and that he would tell her what that was. She trusted him. What a terrifying thought.

She dropped the pebble onto the table and rolled out of bed. Shower, food, errands, and then back to work she went. Good thing she trusted him; she didn’t have time to worry.

  

His resolution lasted through about two seconds of his and Elektra's impromptu, “fake” make-out session on the conference table. The skin of Elektra’s throat was intoxicating. With her legs hooked around his hips he could smell her excitement, the unforgettable musk that still made his whole body seize. She made a little gasping noise and her hand slid into his hair and her teeth were against his ear and he was trying to listen for the guards but all he could hear was her breath and the fabric of her dress rubbing against his tuxedo pants.

Long after they stumbled drunkenly out, he could still taste her skin on his lips.

 

He visited Claire on her break, very late that night, after Elektra’s car dropped him off at home. He went in costume, in case he happened to find anyone he could beat up on the way. She usually took her break on the hospital roof, knowing he could meet her there if he could, and he arrived just before she did, brought her a cup of coffee.

“I don’t know how you jump around on rooftops holding this,” she said, taking the coffee and giving him a light kiss. He checked for nosy neighbors but hearing nothing, took his mask off so she could see his face even if he could never quite see hers. She felt tired, less radiant than usual, or maybe he was comparing her to Elektra who gave off sparks.

“Hi,” he said.

“Oh, you remembered the word,” she said archly but she was smiling, not really angry. She should be.

“It was a weird morning,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t press. Though hadn’t he come here to tell her, to make something happen one way or another?

But this was Claire. Of course she pressed. “That’s all I’m going to get?”

His lips twisted a little, and then he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

She checked her watch. “I have ten minutes. Is this a ten minute conversation?”

“Probably not,” he admitted.

“Okay, then let’s not have it now. I’m not working tomorrow night. Maybe we can have dinner?” He agreed and she took a long sip of coffee and sighed, tipping her head back. Were the stars out tonight? It wasn’t cloudy but he couldn’t really tell how strong the light pollution was at that level of the sky. “None of your guys in tonight,” she remarked, “what have you been doing?”

“Believe it or not, I went to a ‘gala.’”

“For what?”

“To try to catch the Yakuza.”

She laughed. “Well then, I believe it. As long as it doesn’t involve fun of any kind.”

“It had its moments,” he admitted, then regretted it. She reached over and touched his lower lip, caught between his teeth.

“You like it,” she said, “And you didn't send anyone to the hospital tonight, at least, not to my hospital, so it was probably a pretty good night, right? No need for lip biting.”

“Well I wouldn’t say that,” he murmured, capturing her wrist and scraping his teeth over her fingers. She smelled of chemicals and blood. He leaned in and kissed her, nipped at her lower lip just to make his point. She tasted good, Claire did, and he wanted her, and not just because of all the feelings that Elektra brought up. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her. Things had been so good between them, different, _real_.

But he was still thinking about this, and he should not be thinking about it. He broke the kiss as gently as he could.

“Your ten minutes are probably up,” he pointed out.

“You’re such a good Catholic boy,” Claire grumbled, and he felt a stab of pain and guilt right between the scars she’d stitched up on his chest. If only she knew. “Fine, fine, I’ll go back inside.”

“I'll see you tomorrow,” he promised. “Be safe.” He touched her face, her hair, and then she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Matt wanted to take her out somewhere fancy but when Claire woke up the next afternoon the last thing she wanted to do was get dressed up and have an awkward hushed conversation over food neither of them could afford. “I’ll cook,” she said."
> 
> Matt goes to Claire's for dinner with Elektra's presence in New York hanging over them. Set between (my alternate version of) 2x06 and 2x07.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little Matt/Claire interlude before the shit hits the fan.

Matt wanted to take her out somewhere fancy but when Claire woke up the next afternoon the last thing she wanted to do was get dressed up and have an awkward hushed conversation over food neither of them could afford. “I’ll cook,” she said. She was lying in bed, calling him back in response to an earlier text message.

“No, if anyone cooks, it should be me,” he protested.

She sighed. “You know how that sounds, don’t you? If I didn’t know how easily you could sink into a morass of guilt, I would be kind of worried right now, Matt.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line, which was also not reassuring. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he said finally, too late.

“Just bring a bottle of wine,” Claire instructed firmly. “Ask someone at the store to pick out something nice, if that will make you feel better. Dinner will be ready at eight, come before that.”

He assented and hung up and Claire stared at the ceiling for a couple minutes, worrying. Even though she knew when this whole thing started that Matt Murdock was a walking disaster and would bring her nothing but pain and misery and a fair amount of aggravation… oh, that wasn’t fair at all. He had brought her pebbles, and orgasms, and made her laugh (alongside the pain and aggravation). If he was torturing himself, it was probably over something small, something she would be able to shrug off in a minute because unlike him, she had developed some grown-up perspective to stack on top of her Catholic upbringing. Surely this, whatever this was, was being blown all out of proportion.

 

Matt arrived at 7:15 with a bottle of red wine that Claire did not recognize. “Fifteen dollars?” she said, reading the orange price sticker. “I’m impressed.” He stole an arm around her side and tilted her face up to be kissed. His mouth was warm and dry and soft and she moved a little closer, enjoying the warm bulk of him in street clothes — when he visited her at work in his devil suit, he was all cool, hard angles.

She pulled back first, took the wine into the kitchen to open it and check on her simmering pasta sauce. He followed, getting down two glasses from the cabinet without her having to ask. He moved so easily around her apartment now she often forgot he was blind. It felt strange sometimes when they went into the world and he put on a mask of helplessness, though she enjoyed that too, how his facial expressions changed and the way he moved differently. It made her understand him better, to see how he had to hide in front of the whole world.

“The man at the store said that most people can’t taste the difference between a fifteen dollar bottle of wine and a hundred dollar bottle of wine,” Matt said.

“Can you?” His sense of smell was certainly not normal, but she’d never heard him complain about tastes being too strong.

“I’ve made a deliberate effort not to develop my palate,” he explained drily, “Thus, Josie’s.”

She smiled and swirled her wine glass under his nose. “I’m getting wine, what are you getting?”

“Blackberries,” he said with a mock thoughtful frown, as if he were concentrating hard, “Human feet freshly out of some pretty nasty shoes. Mustard seed. And a hint of bourbon.”

“Hmm.” They clinked and drank. She stirred the sauce again. His hand touched her hip and then withdrew and she remembered that all was not well. She wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, was enjoying the brief sense of normalcy too much.

“You’re the only person who ever asks me about how my… abilities… effect my normal life,” he said, his voice almost wistful. “Foggy just tries to argue me into stopping fighting and… and the only other people who ever knew wanted me to fight more.”

Claire glanced over her shoulder at him. He was leaning against the counter, hands braced on either side of his body. He looked tense, and as if were trying not to seem tense. “People?” she asked in as casual a voice as she could manage. “I thought it was just that guy. Stick.” He had told her a little bit about his life — about his father, how he’d learned to use his abilities — but there were so many gaps still. She’d figured that was just part of starting a new relationship. He didn’t know everything about her either.

There was a long pause and then he said, “One of my ex-girlfriends figured it out, a long time ago.”

Ding ding ding. They’d had a very brief conversation about prior relationships once, but Matt’s contribution had basically been ‘one serious girlfriend in college, lots of casual dating and avoiding entanglements ever since.’ Was this the college girlfriend? “And she wanted you to fight _more_?”

“It was… a screwed-up relationship.”

Claire finally turned to look at him, and also reached for her wine glass and took a big swallow. His fingers were still clasped on the counter, drumming. He was still wearing his glasses. She’d gotten used to them over time, stopped trying to look him in the eye to find out what he was thinking, but she still didn’t love them.

“You’re a whole person, Matt,” she said firmly. “Your abilities are part of you all the time, whether you’re eating or fucking or fighting ninjas or writing a legal brief. I see that. If other people don’t see that, it’s because you don’t let them.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, brow creasing a little.

“Well, I know you have a secret identity to protect, so you can’t go around showing off what you can do all the time. But also I think with Foggy, or — whoever — it’s like you would rather be two people. Maybe because you’re so used to secrets you just don’t know how to stop. Or maybe you’re afraid to admit that Matt-in-the-red-suit is the same guy as Matt-in-the-suit-and-tie.”

“Maybe he’s not.” There was an irritated edge to Matt’s voice that in Claire’s mind only proved her point. All the anger he drew on as Daredevil was fully in Matt Murdock. And all the tenderness of Matt Murdock? Was that in Daredevil? Maybe she was fooling herself, but she thought it was. That’s why he couldn’t kill, why he would never be like The Punisher.

Claire shook her head, knowing he would pick up on the nonverbal response. “Like I said, you’re a whole person. You may contain multitudes, but you’re still always you. And I see you.”

He pushed away from the counter with an attitude of slow deliberation that reminded Claire of a large beast stalking its prey. He took her wine glass from her hand and set it down. Without touching her, he reached around her body and turned off the simmering sauce. Claire’s breath caught in anticipation as he caged her against the stove.

“I see you, too,” he said, his voice dark and promising, and then he ruined the effect with a twisted smile that made her stomach drop and her chest open, “in a manner of speaking.”

Then with the speed of the leopard he seemed to be imitating he had twisted her against the wall and he was kissing her, deeply, slowly, druggingly. Claire arched toward him and he pushed her back, holding her so that her body ached for his but could not reach it, only their mouths touching and his hands pinning her in place. He kissed her until she couldn’t breathe, until she was wet and desperate and bit his mouth to get a respite long enough to pant his name.

As if that sound was all he’d needed, he was suddenly in full-body contact with her, and she was pushing him away again to undo his belt, push down his pants, and he was peeling her jeans off her hips and he lifted her against the wall so she could finish kicking them off over her bare feet and then he was inside of her. Hot and hard and so deep. She forced her eyes open and realized he was still wearing his glasses, inches away her own face was reflected back at her even though she felt obliterated by him. He was all she could feel and yet all she could see was herself. He thrust his hips up, pushing her against the wall and she groaned, eyes closing again and then he pulled back, the friction endless and maddening and then he ground back in and she locked her ankles behind his back and bit the skin of his throat and he was taking his time, screwing into her so deep as she pulled his hair and licked his jaw and generally tried to touch every part of him that she could reach.

“Glasses,” he said and she almost laughed but took them off and tried not to fling them too hard onto the counter and he leaned his forehead against hers, skin to skin, and then lifted his face to kiss her softly. He was still fucking her against the wall but it was almost sweet and it was driving her mad.

She kissed him back, shakily, and convulsed when he hit all the right places, and found his lips again and said, “I love you.”

He thrust up inside her, harder this time and her head tilted back against the wall and his lips found her throat, murmuring her name over and over. She came, her legs unable to hold on to his hips and he held her up anyway, still moving with her and holding her face to his, their bodies pressed together and he moaned and came too, hips pumping against her.

Her feet hit the floor but otherwise neither of them moved for a long moment, simply standing and breathing each other in.

His head turned slightly, enough to press another lingering kiss to her bruised mouth. “I love you too, Claire,” he said softly. She felt the ‘but’ coming just behind his words and it hurt, a lash cutting straight through her contented afterglow. She stiffened just a little and he must have sensed it because he pulled back, out of her, though his hands lingered on her arms, he was still all around her in the small kitchen.

She kissed him again and found a clean towel to wipe themselves down. Turned the sauce back on and put a pot of water on for pasta while he re-dressed. Drained her glass of wine and poured herself another.

He came back in wearing only his undershirt and pants, no glasses, no socks, like he was planning to stay the night. She found that reassuring. He settled back into his spot against the counter and said it finally, what they’d both been waiting for. “I have to tell you something.”

She drew in a deep, steadying breath and tried to keep calm. If her heartbeat rose too much he might get scared off, try not to tell her. Anyway, it couldn’t be that bad if he’d just made love to her like that, could it? He was Matt Murdock, good Catholic boy. He wouldn’t do that if something were seriously wrong between them. “Okay.”

“My ex-girlfriend, the screwed-up relationship one, she is back in New York, and she’s… she’s made it difficult for me to ignore her.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra listens in on Matt and Claire discussing her presence in New York. Still between (my versions of) 2x06 and 2x07.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little glimpse at the third leg in this triangle. Never written Elektra before, feedback is always appreciated!

Elektra did not need enhanced hearing to listen to the fight Matthew and his girlfriend had while the pasta water boiled all away. She simply needed a fire escape large enough to hold one slender woman, and a window open to a hot night, and raised voices. Moments before she had heard their moans and whispers, though she had not been able to make out the words then. Did Matthew tell the woman he loved her? Did he love her? Did she, Elektra, care if he did? Maybe, maybe, no. Yes.

But if she could not make out words of love, anger she heard and understood quite clearly. Matthew insisting nothing had happened, the woman asking if yesterday morning was “nothing.” Yesterday morning, Elektra thought, and tasted again the pie. Poor Matthew, he must have been quite worked up after their breakfast. She knew she had been. And again, yesterday night, when he kissed her throat and her hands slid over his chest, around his back, finding new scars. Was that what he called “nothing?” In Shakespeare, “nothing” was a sly way of referring to sex; _Much Ado About Nothing_ was one long dick joke, in a certain light.

Matthew was explaining that it was all a matter of protecting the city, that she, Elektra, could be useful. “Then why did you confess this to me like it was a mortal sin?” the woman asked.

Venial, surely, Elektra thought.

“She has me rattled,” he said. “It’s not important, I was just surprised to see her again.” Liar, liar, Matthew dear. “I ‘confessed’ because I feel bad for not telling you right away.” Not for the touching?

The woman did not seem to believe him either. “I know ‘surprised to see your ex’ and this is not that.”

“She disappeared completely ten years ago. I’m allowed a little adjustment to her sudden appearance.”

“You are ‘allowed’ whatever the fuck you want, Matt,” the woman snapped, and Elektra smiled in the dark. She rather liked this girlfriend. She would kill her in a heartbeat, but she would regret the necessity. “I am not your keeper. Have you heard me say one word about your interaction with this woman, whoever she is? No. See her if you want to see her. Feel whatever it is you need to feel. But do _not_ fucking lie to me about it. Do not come into my house and my bed, do not _touch me_ as some kind of balm for your baby heartbreak.”

Elektra ran a finger down her forearm, imagining it Matthew’s, wondering if she would let him touch her if she knew he was thinking about someone else. (It was a preposterous notion, that he could, but just as a hypothetical.) She thought probably yes, she would live with that. She’d been so long without him, sometimes she thought she would do anything for him to touch her, just once more, and then she remembered it was her willingness to do anything that was the problem. She couldn’t even count the number of baby-faced, dark haired, stubbled Americans she had taken to bed, pretending they were him. It never helped, but they seemed satisfied. If she could just once be the one taken, be the one in his arms substituting for someone else… well, it wasn’t ideal of course, but in the quiet of the fire escape, once more all alone, Elektra could admit that it would do.

Perhaps she should tell the girlfriend this, tell her to shut up and take what she could get. But no: that was not part of the plan. The plan was for the girlfriend to draw a line in the sand, and then for Elektra to take Matthew’s hand and lead him right over that line. He would forget the woman soon enough. It sounded like he had already started to forget her, even when he was fucking her.

There was a long silence after the woman’s line was drawn. Elektra waited.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, his voice almost too low for Elektra to hear. “I shouldn’t have come here like that. I was confused and I acted badly. Very badly. But it’s not… it’s not like that now, tonight. I want to be here, with you.” His voice dropped lower and Elektra could not distinguish the words anymore. Nor could she make out the reply. Well. So Matthew was not quite ready to cross the line. No matter.

Elektra closed her eyes and tried to ignore the hollow ache inside her chest. It was quite common, after all. She had been alone a year ago and a month ago and a week ago and she was still alone. But she knew Matthew had been thinking of her. It was something, and something was not nothing, no matter what Matthew might say.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Elektra go on a jaunt. Alternate 2x07.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm officially ignoring the whole Punisher trial, mostly because it was absolutely the most ridiculous and nonsensical courtroom shenanigans I have ever seen on TV (and I've watched plenty of ridiculous courtroom dramas) and if I try to include it I will just make myself angry and crazy. So if you need to know what else is going on in this version of the world, just pretend the first part of the Punisher storyline happened and he's now in jail awaiting trial.

He shouldn’t be here. Behind Matt, the professor was explaining his code to Elektra. Before him, the glass was screaming. If he could see with his eyes, he might see a thousand shards of himself reflected in the air, but instead there was only the sharp moan of the broken. He hovered his hand close to the surface that had been so solid moments before. A millimeter closer and it shattered, the glass falling out, down, too many stories for even him to follow the path of every piece. The New York air swept in, city sounds replacing the tormented glass. He should be down there with his city. He shouldn’t be here.

But he was. Because Elektra had called him and asked. Because he was afraid for her, and of her. Because Claire had said it was okay, sort of. Because he wanted to shatter glass, and men’s faces.

He turned and told the professor to decode the ledger himself. Matt didn’t want to go somewhere with Elektra and bend their heads over it together. He wanted to do this fast, and be done, and bring Claire coffee on her break and go to work on time in the morning.

Half an hour later they were on their way across the city, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, over fire escapes and across window ledges. Elektra followed effortlessly, sometimes seeing a faster way and swinging ahead, sometimes falling back so he could lead the way through the hidden paths of New York he knew so well. He paused only once, to make sure she was okay, and she laughed and said, “Race you,” even though she didn’t know where she was going.

He wanted to let her get lost, just so he could follow her, just so they could run like this a little longer.

They’d taken too long to find the professor and decode the ledger. All they found was a decoy train car filled with dirt and a gang of Yakuza henchmen trying to kill them. When the fight began, Matt listened for Elektra, trying to follow every move of her fight as well as his own, making sure that she did not need him. But she did not need him. Instead of listening for her need he began to listen for her strength: some part of his mind admiring her speed and beauty even as he punched and kicked and leapt and ducked.

Then there was silence, and her breathing, and the breathing of all the men they had defeated, who would live to see another day, a better day. At that moment, Matt could not imagine a better day.

“What took you so long?” she asked, and he could feel her blood pumping, her excitement despite the nonchalant tone of her voice, and he could feel his own heart in rhythm with hers, his own blood.

She was bleeding; he could smell the sharp tang of her blood above the slower, sluggish bleeding of their fallen enemies. “Let me.” He lifted her hair from her neck, smelled the skin of her neck where his lips had pressed a week ago, now dewed with sweat. He could feel the heat of a slash along the back of her neck. She needed stitches.

Claire, he thought, and stepped back, letting her hair drop. She would come up to the roof and stitch Elektra’s wound on her break if he asked. But how could he ask that? He didn’t want Elektra to know where Claire worked, her name, even that she was a nurse. He didn’t trust her not to try to use that information for… what? Did he really think Elektra would try to hurt Claire somehow? That was crazy. Elektra had made no romantic overtures. He hadn’t heard from her for almost a week until she found the professor. Maybe she really was here because of Roxxon, and it had nothing to do with him. Maybe introducing her to his girlfriend would be the best way of showing them all that there was nothing left between he and Elektra except history and a common enemy.

Or maybe not.

“Come back to my place,” he suggested before he even knew he’d made up his mind. “I can stitch it up there.”

“Very well, Matthew,” Elektra agreed, “but I refuse to drink any of that swill you call ‘beer’ so don’t attempt to offer it to me.”

He smiled despite himself, and then they were running again.

 

She was bleeding all over his floor and they didn’t have time to get dressed after stripping out of their respective hot, sweaty suits. That was the official reason she was not wearing pants and he was both shirtless and pantsless anyway.

“It’s disgusting here in the summer,” Elektra groused, leaning over his sink and pushing her hair out of the way. He could feel her body heat though he was careful not to touch her as he leaned over her with a sterilized needle and surgical thread. He would not do this as cleanly as Claire would have, but he couldn’t apologize for that.

“Try wearing that suit,” Matt remarked.

“We could go to the Hamptons…” Her voice was light, teasing, but all he could think of was the knife in her hand. He paused, waited for the vision to clear before he began his work. She did not flinch when he pushed the needle through her skin, not even the tiniest bit. He tried not to think about her bare thighs or the ridge of her collarbone, or any other part of her body which would be so easy to touch now. Just her neck, and the split edges of skin, and his steady hands.

When it was over she joked about having a scar and then turned around and said they made a good team. He’d told Claire they made a good team once: he was good at getting injured, and she was good at fixing him. She hadn’t laughed.

Matt and Elektra were a different kind of good team. They’d always been good at everything together: fighting, running, playing, fucking. But there had been one thing he wouldn’t do with her, and apparently that had made all the rest irrelevant.

“Put some pressure on it,” he said, handing her a clean towel to press against the wound, and turned away.

“What do you tell people?” she asked, “About your scars?” She followed him into the living room and despite himself he sat on the couch where she could sit too. She sat close, close enough for him to feel the heat of her skin along his leg. “What do you tell the women?”

Claire had asked him that too, once. He had told her that there were no other women, not since he’d become Daredevil. Not since he’d met her.

He thought about making a joke, deflecting Elektra’s attention, but that felt unfair to them all. “My girlfriend knows,” he said. “She’s the only person who’s ever seen most of these.” He should go in his room and find a t-shirt and put it on, but Elektra was right, it was disgustingly hot. He didn’t move.

“She knows what you do and she doesn’t mind?” Elektra asked, her voice half curious and half arch, hiding a thousand things in its shadows. She didn’t actually sound surprised, either about the girlfriend or her knowing. Matt wondered if Elektra had been following him around, some of the nights he hadn’t seen her. She’d broken into his apartment, after all, stolen his suit, unmasked him. Masked him.

“She minds if I get hurt,” Matt said. “The rest of the time… I think she thinks it’s necessary. She cares about this city too, about people.”

“Another do-gooder,” Elektra said, smiling a little. Her accent rolled the words around until they were almost unrecognizable.

“You say that like you’re not one. You _did_ get injured tonight fighting the Yakuza,” Matt pointed out.

“Yes, but I didn’t do it to ‘help people.’ You know me better than that, Matthew.” She was not smiling anymore, though she tried to sound as if she was, as if she were teasing him. She wanted him to think she did it because she was bored, because it was fun, but he didn’t really believe that. He never had. Yes, there was a rush to it: Matt felt that every day, and no more so than when fighting beside Elektra. But that was not all there was to it, all there was to her.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter why you did it,” Matt said. “Frank Castle killed people who had done bad things. His motivation was right, but his action was wrong. Your action was right.”

“Tonight, perhaps it was.”

They had turned toward each other as they talked, his left leg on the couch between them, elbows and knees almost touching. It would be so easy to reach out and cup her face in his hands. He wanted to. How could he want to so much when he was in love with Claire? Last week when he told her about Elektra, Claire said that she trusted him, that she wasn’t going to demand he not see Elektra, or try and put some arbitrary limits on what he could and couldn’t do. She also said that trust could be broken, and if he broke her trust there wouldn’t be any coming back from that. He wished that she had been more demanding. Like any good Catholic, he preferred clear hierarchies and rules. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not care about your ex, or want to protect her, or want to touch her, or want her to believe in her own goodness.

“Elektra, where did you go?” he asked, the question that had always been waiting there between them.

He could see her grow still and soft. “As far away from you as I could,” she murmured, a ghost of a smile around her lips.

He’d known it, of course he’d known it, and it was ten years ago, but still it hurt. She had been everything and then — gone. And he’d been gone too, as if she took everything alive in him with her.

“And did you find whatever you were looking for?” he made himself ask.

She drew him a breath and said, “Mostly I found out that I was alone.” Now she did smile, he could feel it, but her face was still a mask of pain. He thought of all the nights he had spent roaming New York alone, and how different it was to have her running beside him. He thought of coming up to Claire’s balcony and how his heart lifted when he heard her moving around inside her apartment.

“Then why didn’t you come back?”

“Because you don't know what I know,” she said, shaking her head. “Because you deserve better.”

He wanted to deny it. The chivalrous part of him or the stupid part, or the part that had always loved her wanted to say, _Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no one better than you_. Or wanted to say, _We are the same. How can I deserve better than the other half of me?_ But there was Claire. Claire who was even now treating someone who had nowhere else to go, someone sick or dying, who as probably exhausted and anxious about him, and yet never gave up on her patients or herself or him. Claire deserved better, but right now she had chosen to trust him.

He turned away from Elektra, blew out the air he’d been holding inside his lungs. It was a bullshit answer and probably the only right one at that moment. “Lie down, get some rest,” he said, standing up. She obeyed without protest. He waited long enough to see her eyes close and then went into his bedroom and shut the door.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Elektra…” Matt’s voice had a note of warning.  
> “Matthew.” In response, Elektra’s voice was mocking.  
> “Claire,” Claire said. “That’s me. We haven’t actually been introduced.”
> 
> Claire and Elektra finally meet. And there's cunnilingus! Plus some mock-voyeurism, for good measure.
> 
> Set during my alternate 2x07.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In earlier fics (specifically my Damned series) I explored Claire and Matt first hooking up and Claire's family a little bit more -- I just go ahead and stick with all the family background I laid out there, so this could be considered a sequel to that series. Go read it if you want more Clairedevil action!

That woman had been in Matt’s apartment. There was a strange perfume lingering by the couch, and a throw blanket heaped at one end as if it had been casually pushed off in the morning. Matt always folded his throw blanket. The first aid kit Claire had made him was out on the counter, a sterilized needle pack open beside it. Matt had no wounds on him, which meant that _she_ was the one who’d needed stitches. The rich, talented, screwed up ex-girlfriend.

Claire was not a jealous person by nature — or maybe by nurture. When she was a kid and found out that her father was absent so often because he had a girlfriend and a couple other kids in Philly, her mother had sat Claire and her sister down and told them that it didn’t mean their father didn’t love them — and it certainly didn’t mean that there was anything wrong with _them_. If he missed dinner or Claire’s basketball game, it was his loss, not theirs.

Claire’s sister Rosa had called bullshit, said he chose that other family over them and never forgave him for it, but the advice rang true for Claire. Being jealous of those other kids only made Claire’s life worse; it never did and never would change her father’s behavior. That didn’t mean she was a pushover — she got plenty angry at her father, especially when he promised things and failed to deliver — but it wasn’t a possessive anger. Maybe she simply believed deep down that he loved her, no matter what he did or didn’t do. Or maybe she had already given up on him acting right. Self-confidence or resignation? She and Rosa had always disagreed on what it said about her.

Either way, she rarely got jealous in adult relationships, and she wasn’t jealous of Matt’s feelings about this woman. She was simply… wary. She didn’t want to lose Matt. She didn’t want to lose herself. And she sure as hell did not need more drama in her life.

So she didn’t let herself dwell silently on what this woman’s perfume meant. She simply asked as they stood in the kitchen unpacking the Thai takeout: “Has Elektra been here?”

Matt looked briefly pained, and then said, “She slept here last night, on the couch. We were in a fight with the Yakuza and she was injured. I bandaged her up and then it was too late and dangerous to send her home.”

“You could have brought her to me at the hospital,” Claire pointed out in what she thought was a reasonable tone, just probing for information.

He grimaced for real then. “I thought of that, but I thought it might be asking too much of you, and… I didn’t really want you two to meet.”

Well, at least he was being honest. “You know I will always provide medical care if it is needed,” Claire pointed out, just to be clear.

“I know. And I appreciate that.” He slipped a hand around her waist and leaned down to kiss her hair. “It was a selfish decision not to let you two compare notes.”

Claire tilted her head back to look at him. She wanted to ask if Elektra was very beautiful, but of course he wouldn’t even know, except from other people’s reactions to her. She wanted to ask if they smelled the same, moved the same, talked the same, if Matt Murdock had a type. She kind of wanted to meet this ex-girlfriend. But instead she said, “Thank you for telling me. Would you, if I hadn’t asked?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know.”

She frowned and broke away from him, picking up a couple food cartons and skirting around him to go sit down on the couch.

“I’m trying, Claire,” he said, following her with chopsticks and the rest of the food.

“I’m not mad,” she said, wondering if he could tell better than she could if that were true or not. “Just trying to feel out the lay of the land.”

“I’m trying to get her out of my life — our lives — but the mission was a bust,” Matt said, “The trail just led to a crate of dirt. I don’t know what the next move is, or realistically when she’ll be gone. I wish I did.”

Claire poured some green curry over the rice and began eating, using her concentration on the chopsticks to focus her mind off him for a moment. When Matt told her about this woman last week, he told her that Elektra had figured out what he could do, that they’d been in total sync with each other, but then after their first fight, she’d disappeared. Reading between the lines, she’d smashed his heart in the door on her way out.

“What does Foggy say about all this?” Claire asked.

Matt’s brows drew together a little. “He doesn’t know anything about it.”

“Your crazy ex shows up out of nowhere and you haven’t told your best friend?” Claire asked incredulously. “What do you two talk about?”

“Work,” Matt said, “Mostly. Sometimes Foggy yells at me for taking risks. If I told him about Elektra, he’d just yell at me some more. He wasn’t her biggest fan.”

“I don’t know if that should make me feel better or worse,” Claire admitted.

“I expected you to yell a lot more, honestly.” Matt’s mouth quirked a little, the way that always made her want to touch his face. She handed him the rice and curry and took the drunken noodles.

“Maybe Foggy would surprise you. Maybe if you gave him more of a chance to know the other side of you, it wouldn’t throw him so much when he caught a little glimpse.”

“Back to that, are we?”

“To armchair psychologizing you? It never gets old.” He leaned over to kiss her, and she could taste the chili on his tongue. “Mmm, spicy.”

He reached over and stole a noodle from her carton. “We’re trying to get on Frank Castle’s case. The public defender they assigned to him is a disaster. He won’t see us though.”

“You want to defend the Punisher?” Claire asked, surprised. “I thought you only defended the innocent, and you of all people know that he killed a _lot_ of people.” Not to mention the collateral consequences of the gang wars he’d set off. She was still seeing the impacts in the ER.

“Yes he did,” Matt said evenly, “but he still deserves the full weight of justice under the law, and that includes a competent defense. Plus the DA is trying for the death penalty, which I believe is wrong.”

“Even though he applied it himself, without benefit of trial?”

“Even though. Everyone deserves mercy — his family did, his victims did, and he does too.” Matt’s voice and face were entirely earnest, serious and sad thinking of all the victims good and bad. It made Claire’s heart ache, how much he felt everyone else’s pain. She put down her food and moved closer so they were touching, so she could take his free hand in hers.

“Makes sense,” she said, stroking his knuckles one by one. “It’s like providing medical care to whoever comes through the door — we’re all entitled to a certain basic level of human treatment, no matter what we’ve done.”

“Right.” He set aside the rest of the food and pulled her onto his lap, framing her face in his hands. If she hadn’t known better, she almost would have thought he was searching her face: his eyes flickered over her countenance, his face grave and close to hers. “Claire, you—“ He cut off abruptly, stiffening.

“What?”

“Maybe you should—“

She cut off him. “If you are about to try to get me to leave, I can tell you, that is not happening. What’s going on? Is someone coming?”

“Someone’s here.” His face looked bleak, and he turned it up to the staircase. There was no one there, for a moment, and then a shape dissolved from the darkness: a woman.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” an accented voice purred. The woman stepped forward, into the light. She was gorgeous, of course, and maybe Matt _did_ have a type: black hair, olive skin, though this woman clearly had a much more intensive skin care regime than Claire had ever bothered with. Her hair was long and straight and shiny. She was wearing all black and red, a perfect foil for Matt’s crime fighting suit.

Matt made an abrupt move as if he would lift Claire off his lap and she frowned and stayed right where she was. “You are, actually,” Claire noted. “We’re in the middle of dinner.”

“I was planning to let you finish,” Elektra said, giving an insouciant little shrug.

“And listen in to everything we said and did?” Matt asked, though it wasn’t really a question. Now his hands tightened on Claire’s arms. She felt a flash of annoyance: make up your mind, Matt.

“Believe me, I have much more interesting things to do than listen to this cozy little chat.” Elektra waved a hand in dismissal of everything happening on the floor below her. “However, now that you’ve already interrupted yourself… I do have some business to discuss, Matthew.” She began descending the stairs, hips swaying.

“Matthew?” Claire muttered and Matt looked even more miserable. She decided it was time to reestablish her personal space and stood up just as Elektra reached the first floor. Claire was somewhat gratified to notice that she was taller, though she suspected that in a fight she would definitely lose. _Not_ that she was planning to fight with this woman.

“What do you want, Elektra?” Matt asked, standing up too.

Elektra glanced at Claire, assessing. Could Matt somehow sense that? He could probably hear how Claire’s heartbeat sped up just a little in response, how her back straightened.

“Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of Claire,” Matt said.

Elektra’s brows rose at that. “Oh, really? How good to know. I will be sure to keep that in mind.”

“Elektra…” Matt’s voice had a note of warning.

“ _Matthew_.” In response, Elektra’s voice was mocking.

“Claire,” Claire said. “That’s me. We haven’t actually been introduced.”

Matt winced at that. “Claire, this is Elektra Natchios. Elektra, my girlfriend Claire Temple.”

Elektra gave her an obviously false smile. “How lovely to meet you, Claire. Matt is so secretive, I don’t think he ever would have shared you if I hadn’t dropped in.”

Claire could think of a lot of catty responses, but she was not particularly interested in demonstrating that she knew Matt better, or that if given a choice he would choose her. She put away all the clever comebacks and simply said, “I’m glad we got to meet too.”

She glanced at Matt, who was looking pretty nervous. She wondered if Elektra had already been there listening when he said he didn’t want the two of them to exchange notes. Claire herself was not feeling so interested in having some kind of stand-off in lieu of what was supposed to be a relaxed dinner. Nor did she want to know what this woman would say about Matt; she was pretty sure it would either be false or the kind of true designed to manipulate. Claire was not interested in either one.

“I don’t really want to hear all your Yakuza whatever,” Claire said honestly. “I prefer not to know more than I have to. Matt, I’ll just be in your room when you’re done?” She thought about leaving, but she’d planned to stay the night, and she was working the next four night shifts — it didn’t make any sense to let this woman drive her out of the apartment.

“Sure,” he said.

Claire took her time pouring herself a glass of wine before she retreated into his room. Elektra was telling him about some construction sites — all business. She shut the door behind her, feeling a little like a parent who shuts the door on her teenage daughter and sixteen year-old boyfriend. At some point you had to give your daughter birth control and trust her, whether you wanted to or not. Of course, you might not always trust sixteen year-old boys, but… that metaphor was breaking down quickly.

She sat on Matt’s bed, drank her wine, and played Words with Friends on her phone until he came in. It had probably only been ten minutes or so — she had tried not to look at the clock.

“She’s gone,” he said, coming in and sitting on the end of the bed. He put a hand on one of her feet, a small point of contact. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Would you have kicked me out rather than letting us meet?” Claire asked, setting her phone down on the table and facing him.

“I don’t know. It’s mostly instinct, to—hide. Compartmentalize, I guess. I don’t even realize I’m doing it until it’s already done.”

“That doesn’t make it okay,” Claire pointed out.

“I know.”

She bit her lip and looked him over, his shoulders slumped, waiting for her to yell at him. He didn’t know that he could be loved for all of himself. Who ever had even known all of Matt, much less told him that he was okay? She used her foot to tug on her arm, then when he moved toward her, she hooked it around his leg and pulled him closer. Eventually she could reach him with her hands, and she tugged on his shirt and hair until he was hovering over her, their bodies aligned but barely touching.

“She’s beautiful,” Claire said, touching his face, beginning to unbutton his shirt. His forehead crinkled a little.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment. I was just saying, I can understand the appeal. And the accent — that’s got to be a turn-on. _Matthew_.” Claire imitated the way Elektra said his name and laughed. A smile twitched across his face. If he was so unwilling or unable to talk about any of this with Foggy, she suspected he had never gotten to the making-fun-of-your-ex part of breaking up, where you pretended/maybe believed a little that all the things you’d loved were actually as ridiculous as they seemed to everyone else but you.

“A little bit of a turn-on,” he admitted.

“But you sent her away, right? She’s not still out there in the living room listening?”

He cocked his head, listened for a second. “Definitely gone, I promise.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Claire asked. She had finished unbuttoning his shirt now, and she slipped her hands underneath his cotton undershirt, felt the corded muscles of his abs, straining a little as he hovered over her. Felt the scars she’d helped to make.

“Relieved,” he said immediately.

“Good,” she said firmly, “me too.” She lifted her head and kissed him, firmly. He braced himself on one arm and shrugged off his shirt, pulled his undershirt over his head, and then came back down to kiss her again. He still tasted faintly spicy from dinner. Finally, finally, he lowered his weight onto her, his pelvis trapping hers against the mattress, his hands caging her wrists as he pressed her down into the bed.

Claire kissed him back, hungrily, and when he lifted his mouth to set it to her collarbone she whispered in his ear, “What if she was still there? Would you like that, Matt? Would you like her to listen to you fuck me?”

His response was instantaneous. His hands tightened on her wrists and she could feel his cock surge to attention through all the layers of clothing between them.

“With your hearing, you’d probably be able to hear how turned on she’d get,” Claire continued, taking his excitement as consent for her little game. “I’m sure she’d think she was controlling it, but you could hear how her breath would get a little faster. How every time you made me moan she’d tremble a little.”

Matt groaned then and was suddenly tugging at her shirt and bra, undoing her jeans, desperate to get at her skin.

“Maybe she’d get so excited she’d touch herself, what do you think?” Matt slid down her body and somehow her panties were gone and his mouth was on her. Claire cried out at his first long lick and he growled, “Don’t stop,” and so she put a hand into her hair so she could pull if she needed some distraction and kept talking even as he slowly curled and uncurled his tongue inside of her.

“Oh god, yes, she definitely wouldn’t be able to help herself. She’d reach down into her pants and slide her fingers over her clit, hard, oh _fuck_ Matt, yes, just like that, and then she’d try to put them inside herself, because she’d want to be fucked so bad, she’d want to imagine that you were fucking her, but she’d have to get two, three fingers to feel full enough,” a guttural sound emerged as he shoved three fingers inside her, hard, and she struggled to catch a breath and keep going, “she’d be sitting out there in the dark and you could hear her, you could hear how wet she was and the sound of her fucking herself even as you slid inside me, oh shit, yes, right there Matt.”

He was sawing his fingers in and out of her now, even as his tongue flickered over her clit, and she was so close but he held back just enough, he could always feel her orgasm trembling on her edge before she was even aware of it and she knew he was waiting for something now, he wouldn’t give it to her until she— “And then she’d come, oh fuck, she’d come listening to us and imagining it was her, but she wouldn’t want you to know she was listening so she’d be quiet, as quiet as she could be, but you’d still hear, you’d still know, and you’d fuck me harder because of it, you’d fuck me so hard, oh my fucking god, oh, oh, oh.” He sucked on her clit and ground his fingers into her g-spot and she was convulsing, the top of her head came off as she shook and moaned.

Before the tremors were entirely gone he was over her, inside of her and she was clinging to his shoulders and shaking still with the intensity of the feeling as he scraped her oversensitized pussy.

“It’s you, it’s you, Claire,” he moaned, pressing his face against her throat as he pounded into her. Was she only imagining it or was he actually thrusting harder than he ever had before? “Only you, I swear, you feel so good.”

“I know,” she managed though she didn’t know anything except how good it felt to have him there, to be taken by him and take him in. “You’re mine, I know, you’re mine.” But even as she came to pieces again around him, a small part of her brain thought: what the fuck did you get yourself into Claire?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two conversations: Matt and Foggy, Claire and Elektra. 
> 
> Still around 2x07, AU version.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a bit longer -- am struggling with how close to stick to the show and if I do diverge, having to come up with an actual plot! This chapter ended up just being more of a delaying tactic than an answer. But hopefully a fun delaying tactic. Next chapter should be more plotty.

The next day, the firm of Nelson and Murdock was called into court and assigned to defend Frank Castle. The judge explained that Frank’s previous lawyer had been in a car accident, and they’d come recommended. That was all. Foggy was so stunned the judge had to ask him three times to leave so the court could move to the next case.

“What the hell happened?” Foggy asked when he recovered his voice in the courtroom hall. Foggy had been wary about the whole ‘defending Frank Castle’ idea to begin with, but now they had no choice.

Matt had an idea. It was not an idea he liked. “I have to look into something,” he said. “I’ll meet you back at the office.”

Matt found the unfortunate public defender in the hospital. He was startled by Matt’s presence, and stoutly maintained his car accident story even though Matt could tell he was lying. “Was it a man or a woman?” Matt asked as calmly as he could manage. The man’s body reacted when he said ‘woman.’ The idea grew into a certainty. Fuck. How dare Elektra attack an innocent man like this? Matt hadn’t asked for that. She must have talked to the judge too, or they would have just gotten someone else from the public defender’s office to sub in. She could get he and Foggy disbarred, if someone suspected they had been involved.

Her actions also demonstrated a chilling willingness to do just about anything to get his attention.

Claire was not on shift yet and did not answer her phone. Foggy was calling Matt demanding to know where he was so he didn’t go to her apartment, just left her a message asking her to call him. He headed back to the office. He’d have to give Foggy some explanation, some warning.

“Did you do this?” Foggy asked the moment Matt walked into the office. He’d clearly had some time to think it over and realized that this was not the result of a random car accident. Karen was out somewhere, probably investigating the case.

“No, I had nothing to do with it,” Matt said firmly. He set aside his cane, rubbed at his forehead absently wondering if there was any way to get around this conversation, and then decided there wasn’t. “It was Elektra. From college.”

“Elektra?”

“Yeah, she’s back in town.”

“Your ex-girlfriend?”

Matt tried to explain, as briefly as he could, though there was so much he hadn’t told Foggy — that Elektra knew about his powers (years before Foggy did), that she herself was not who she appeared to be, that the Yakuza were back in the city — it was hard to keep anything concise and clear. When he admitted that Elektra was their new client, Foggy went still. “You lied again?”

“I did,” Matt admitted, “I was trying to protect the city, I—“

“And now she just somehow decided to get us put on the trial of the century, for which we are woefully underprepared, because…?”

“She must have overheard me telling Claire about it,” Matt explained, talking fast, desperate for Foggy to understand. “I never told her about it, I didn’t sanction her actions. I’m furious with her, I—“

“I don’t care!” Foggy erupted. “Stop acting like these things just happen to you. Nobody is making you go out at all hours of the night fighting bad guys. And _no one_ makes you lie to your friends, over and over again! She’s not the problem Matt. You are.”

Matt felt as if he’d been punched, a heavy blow he had not felt coming. This was why he didn’t tell Foggy things, a small, hurt voice protested, because he reacted so badly. But Matt could almost hear Claire’s voice in his head: _If you had just told him in the first place, he wouldn’t be so angry now_. Was she right? Or did she just not understand the realities of a vigilante life? Matt’s jaw flexed, anger and defensiveness warring with shame.

Foggy shook his head, started to turn away.

“Wait!” Matt said, grabbing at him. “Don’t walk away from me.”

“We have a lot of work to do, Matt, thanks to your girlfriend.”

“Elektra’s not my girlfriend.”

“That’s right, Claire. Does she know about this?” Foggy asked. Matt suspected that his friend hoped the answer was ‘no,’ both because it would give Foggy more of an excuse to be angry and because it would mean that Matt lied to other people as much as he lied to Foggy. He almost indulged the desire, but stopped himself.

“She does. I mean, she knows Elektra is in town and I’m working with her to fight the Yakuza. She doesn’t know about today.”

Foggy’s entire body drooped a little. “Of course she does. Well I’m glad there’s someone you can be honest with, Matt.” _Even if it’s not me_ , hung unsaid in the air between them.

“Foggy…” Matt wanted to tell him that it was different with Claire, that she’d always known both sides of him, that she didn’t judge him for being Daredevil as well as Matt Murdock. He wanted to explain that sometimes he needed just to be Matt Murdock with Foggy, to be reminded of who that was — he didn’t want to draw his best friend into a world that would only hurt him, and maybe he didn’t want Foggy to see that side of himself because he was afraid Foggy would hate it, would hate him. He wanted to tell him how confusing Elektra’s presence was, and how angry he was at her for being here and interfering, and how alive he felt with her anyway. But he couldn’t say any of that. He didn’t even know the words.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Foggy said finally when Matt could not summon up any explanations or defenses. “They delivered the case files while you were out. Better start reading.”

 

Elektra was waiting outside Claire’s apartment when she came home from having a very early dinner with her mother. Unlike her mostly practical outfit of the night before, daytime-Elektra was wearing stiletto heels and a sheathe dress that probably cost more than Claire made in a month. She was leaning casually against the door of her illegally parked Maserati convertible. Red.

“How do you know where I live?” Claire asked, keeping about five feet between them just in case.

“I followed Matthew here once,” Elektra responded, not even bothering to lie.

Claire had the same lack of desire to do this whole girlfight thing as the night before, but she also didn’t want to keep having to do this if Elektra was determined. Better to get it over with.

“Do you want to come in?” Claire asked with an inward sigh.

“I’d love to.” Elektra left the car where it was, top down, which Claire thought was a pretty bad idea, but perhaps Elektra did not mind homeless people taking naps in her car or having it towed. Perhaps even having it towed with a homeless person napping inside it.

Inside Claire’s apartment Elektra did a very good ‘rich-person-fascinated-by-how-the-other-half-lives’ bit, roaming around inspecting the mismatched decor with barely hidden horror and amusement. Claire tried to resist rolling her eyes and sat down on the couch. “What can I do for you?”

“You’re very straightforward,” Elektra said with a little smile. “Is that what Matthew likes about you?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?”

“Because I don’t really want to hear his answer.” Claire was surprised by the forthrightness of that statement, and even more taken aback when Elektra looked her in the eye and added, “It’s one thing to know that he is better off without me, and another to hear him say it out loud.”

Was this another manipulation? Somehow get Claire to feel sympathy for Elektra or want Matt to be nicer to her because her heart was broken? Or was Elektra actually admitting some vulnerability, trying to make a connection?

“If he’s better off without you, why are you here?” Claire asked.

“Because I am not better off without him.” Elektra abruptly stopped her prowling of the small space and sat in Claire’s armchair, crossing her legs, hands extended in a ‘what-can-I-do?’ gesture.

“So this is all an attempt to win him back?”

Elektra folded her hands in her lap and swept her eyes over Claire, who stared right back refusing to be cowed. This was her apartment, her city, her boyfriend they were discussing. All this woman’s wealth and beauty and apparent knowledge of the criminal underworld did not mean she had any power here, in this room.

“I thought I knew him so well,” Elektra said finally, almost wistfully. “I thought he just needed a little push to acknowledge his true self, to live his fullest life. I thought he was living a lie all these years, hiding who he really is. But now I am not sure.”

“I don’t think anyone, even Matt, knows who he really is,” Claire said, even though sometimes she thought she did know — but part of why she loved him was that he could always surprise her.

“Do you know who _you_ are?” Elektra asked, her voice sharpening abruptly.

“Most of the time I do,” Claire replied evenly, wondering where this was going. “Do you?”

“Of course.” Elektra smiled thinly. “I am a killer. I tell you just between us girls. You may tell Matthew, of course, but he won’t believe you. Nevertheless, it’s true.”

A chill ran down Claire’s spine at her casual tone but she strongly suspected this was not a feint. Or not just a feint anyway. Elektra was telling the truth as she saw it.

“I suppose it is a luxury, knowing oneself,” Elektra continued when Claire didn’t say anything. “Sometimes it seems rather dismal though. Boring.”

“Are you trying to frighten me?” Claire asked.

Elektra seemed almost startled by the question. “No! Well, I don’t believe so. Don’t worry, I am not planning to kill _you_. It’s clear that would be a tactical mistake.”

“I’m so relieved.” Claire’s tone was very dry, and Elektra laughed a little at it, a lilting, accented laugh that danced around the living room. Claire felt lightheaded for a second at the incongruity of the sound.

“I didn’t count on you,” Elektra said after another moment of silence. She cocked her head, eyes lingering over Claire in a different way. “You do prove an unexpected challenge.”

Claire thought about saying thank you, as if that were a compliment, and she thought about telling Elektra to take her not-all-that-subtle attempts to win back Claire’s boyfriend and fuck off. But instead she said, “I have to get ready for work, so if you had a point to this little chat, could you please get to it?”

“Did I have a point?” Elektra mused out loud. “I’m not sure I did, actually.” She stood up, smoothed her dress down. “Perhaps to say that I am sorry.”

“For what?” Claire asked, knowing she was playing into Elektra’s hands but feeling she needed the answer anyway.

“For what is going to happen next.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things did not quite go as planned for Elektra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took even longer -- real life intruded. Also I have been listening to Lemonade obsessively, and that may or may not start creeping in to later chapters... which hopefully will come faster than this one.

Elektra had been an expert at inflicting pain since she was only a child; she was considerably less adept at suffering it herself. Stick had tried to teach her the way of it for years: how to clear her mind, how to focus on her breath, how to shape the pain, use it, discard it, forget it. But she always failed. Pain — true pain — found a way through any barrier she put up, stole her breath, filled her mind with its tearing claws, and in the end, pain always won.

Because of the pain she didn’t remember much from her meeting with Matthew or the fight or how after being slashed open with a sword she got to his apartment or his bed. The night was a great dark wash of pain in her mind. She could remember her own screams. She knew he had held her down. She knew it was his fault, all of it, for calling her name, for wanting her to be good. Everything else was simply pain, pain, pain all the way down.

 

When she woke up in his bed she knew enough to know that nothing had gone as planned.

Matthew’s bed was firm, no soft pillow-top mattress for him, but his sheets were high quality. Did it hurt his skin to sleep on poorly woven sheets? Poor Matthew, with his time in an orphanage, his narrow dorm room bed. She could make sure he always had the very best sheets, she thought, stroking these between her finger and thumb. It was then that the pain found her again, and she gasped as it took her, and he was there in a moment beside her.

“How are you?” he asked. She closed her eyes against the sight of his beloved face. His fault, all of it.

She shook her head, right to left, and then back again. The pillow smelled of him and of a woman. There was a woman, she remembered. Claire. She suspected Claire could handle pain. Claire seemed capable of all sorts of things.

“Help is coming,” he said, and then she knew no more.

 

The next time she woke up Claire was sitting beside the bed in pale blue scrubs. She looked terrible: dark circles under her eyes, blood on the blue. “When you said to expect something bad, I didn’t think you were going to almost get yourself killed,” she said when she saw that Elektra was awake.

“Wasn’t the plan,” Elektra rasped. Claire held a glass of water to her lips, told her not to try to sit up. She was very good at holding the water just at the correct angle so it did not drown a woman lying down. That must be one of the things they taught you in nursing school. Or maybe she’d accidentally drowned a patient once, Elektra thought, almost hopefully.

Matt appeared in the doorway. “You’re awake,” he said. He came over and sat on the edge of the bed and took Elektra’s hand. She remembered him shoving her against the wall, angry at her interference. She remembered him holding her so carefully.

Claire was looking at their linked hands, expressionless. Elektra tightened her grip on Matt. Not exactly the plan, no, but perhaps it would do.

“Did you save me?” she asked, tilting her head toward Claire.

“I made sure there wasn't too much internal damage and stitched you up. You’ll have a scar.”

“Like Matthew’s,” Elektra murmured and observed with pleasure as Claire finally reacted to her provocations: a slight widening of her eyes, a firmer set to her lips. His hand tightened on Elektra’s, in warning she supposed, so she let her eyes drift shut: helpless, hapless girl that she was, she must shepherd her strength carefully.

“I know you’re awake,” Matthew said. Yet he did not let go of her hand. Why not? He felt guilty, no doubt. As she’d meant him to. She’d wanted him angry, and guilty, and strong, wanted him to put his hands to her throat, to bite her, to forget his regular life for just long enough so that when he remembered he was too ashamed to go back to it. He would choose her when there was nothing else left for him.

But Claire was still there, sitting there, watching him hold Elektra’s hand. Not what she had planned at all.

“I’m injured,” Elektra said.

“You’re going to survive,” Claire said firmly. “Also I brought some pain meds, but you have to eat something first. Do you think you can do that?”

Elektra’s eyes flew open. “Not if you plan to spoon feed me.”

“Not my first choice either, believe me,” Claire said dryly, throwing a look at Matthew.

“Maybe we can get you propped up,” Matthew suggested, “and then you can feed yourself.”

Claire agreed that would be all right as long as Elektra did not attempt to move herself. The two of them piled pillows up behind her and very gently lifted her up to lie back against them. The pain was excruciating when they pulled her upright but then they settled her back and it faded to a sharp ache.

“Broth,” Claire said, standing up and moving toward the kitchen. “And drink more water, now that you’re upright.”

Matthew handed her the water glass. It hurt to move her arm even, though as far as she could tell it wasn’t injured. “When I thought I lost you, I felt hollow,” he said. He was sitting on the edge of the bed facing away from her, his hands on his arms, his voice conversational. _I felt hollow_.

She wanted to tell him she knew, she had felt like that every day since the night she left him, but she couldn’t seem to say it. Was hollow part of the plan? She had meant to sever him from the pieces of a normal life he clung to, but as far as she could tell she had failed. She had not been enough back then and she was not enough now, even with improved patience and tactics and an army of ninjas providing excuses for her. Carving her open.

Claire came back in with a mug of steaming chicken broth. “A little bit at a time,” she said, swapping it for the water glass. “Be careful, it’s hot.”

She had the sudden urge to toss the hot liquid into Claire’s tired, beautiful face. So much for her good deeds and Matthew’s conflicted heart. She took a drink instead and scalded her tongue.

 

Claire took the mug back to Matt’s kitchen when Elektra was done eating and lost herself staring, dead-eyed, at the window. “You okay?” Matt asked, materializing at her elbow.

“I’m tired,” she said truthfully. She’d worked a full shift and gotten off to find multiple missed calls from Matt, a frantic voicemail. At first she’d been relieved that he was not the one injured, but now her tired brain was beginning to shift over consequences and she was not so sure this was going to work out better.

“You should go home, get some sleep,” Matt said. She noticed he did not touch her, not the way he had taken Elektra’s hand. Claire was fairly sure it had been unconscious, that gesture, not a deliberate sign of changed loyalty, but her eyes ached too much to be entirely sure.

“Are you calling in sick?” Claire asked, turning to look at him finally.

He hesitated. Foggy had been calling and texting all morning. Matt had said something about the Frank Castle case, but honestly Claire had been too focused on her patient to listen much.

“You go into work. I can stay,” she said. “I’ll take a nap on the couch.”

“Are you sure?” His voice was concerned, and she wondered if he still was worried about her talking to Elektra. She hadn’t told him about their conversation the day before. She’d thought that telling him would only play into Elektra’s hand, whatever that meant.

“She shouldn’t be alone for the next few hours, just in case.” She turned to face him finally, look over his tired face, his bowed head. She took his hand, the hand that had been holding Elektra’s hand, and touched his swollen knuckles. “What happened?”

“It was my fault,” he said, sounding more like a lost little boy than she’d ever heard before. “I didn’t mean for her to get hurt. She took one of their swords, she was going to kill him — I tried to stop her, but he had another weapon I didn’t know about, and when I said her name, she was distracted, he got her.”

Yesterday Elektra had sat in Claire’s living room and said _I am a killer_ , and _he won’t believe you_. Claire wondered if Matt would believe her now, or if Elektra had underestimated him then; he said ‘she was going to kill him’ so easily, as if it were not at all a startling piece of information.

“She’ll live,” Claire reminded him. His arm crept around her waist and he pulled her closer, breathing in the smell of her hair. She rested her forehead against his chest, wanting to fall asleep standing right there, contained by him.

“Thank you,” he said, in a tone he had never used to thank her for saving his life. A tone that said she had saved him some unbearable anguish. Claire was not sure she wanted to be thanked like that, not for this.

“I should shower and get to work,” Matt said finally. Claire nodded and pushed away from him. They both were marked in blood, exhausted. Not a time to think, or talk, or make decisions.

“I’ll check on Elektra.”

Her patient was asleep, which seemed to be for the best on a couple different levels. Claire checked Elektra’s temperature — no fever — and then let herself melt onto the couch. She could barely remember her patients from the long night before: she tried to reconstruct them, some life outside of this apartment, outside of Matt, but she was asleep before she could recall a single face.

 

A girl he’d dated briefly in college — before Elektra — had asked Matt once if being blind meant that he didn’t have a good memory. She’d been taking a psych class where they learned about visual memory, and she was fascinated by the idea that the mind and body might be so closely linked. He had told her that he could still remember what it was like to see, and that when he met a new person or went to a new place, he formed a picture of it in his mind — the brain creating new pathways for those that were destroyed. This wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t exactly false either. He did form pictures of people and places, though they weren’t as imagined as he had implied, and they weren’t — visual, precisely. They were movement and taste, blood and bone. And he had a very good memory. Too good.

He could remember with perfect clarity the moment the sword opened Elektra’s gut, for instance, and the sound her skin made as it split open.

He could remember, before that, how he wanted to hurt her. It seemed so far away now, but he had been furious when he met her, that she had dared to interfere in his life, that she had driven a wedge between him and Foggy, that she had exposed his own failures.

He could remember how that wanting had felt, so close to desire. How he’d put his hands on her body hard and wanted to keep them there.

He could remember holding her, how small she felt in his arms, limp, quiet. He wanted her to rage. He wanted her to take him apart. But she only lay there, whimpering. He’d never wanted to let her go then either.

All of this, in a cycle in his mind: anger, violence, blood, fear, anger, violence, blood, fear. He saw it all in perfect detail. Skin ripping, clothes ripping, hands ripping, and then the tenderness he could not help.

And then Claire too: Claire, calm and competent. Claire’s hands knitting back together the skin he had helped to sunder.

What was he going to do?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire takes care of Elektra, and then Elektra takes care of Claire.

Claire woke up just before two and made herself some lunch. Elektra was still asleep. Her forehead was a little warm, but that was normal; her body was fighting off potential infection. She took a shower and dressed in the bathroom in one of Matt’s tank tops and her scrubs pants, since she didn’t have a real change of clothes. She kept meaning to ask Matt for a drawer. He left clothes at her house, but that’s because he was always showing up in his Daredevil suit. Hard to wear that home in the morning.

Elektra was awake when Claire emerged from the bathroom. “How are you feeling?” Claire asked.

“Like hell,” Elektra answered succinctly. She tried to push herself up and winced at the effort.

“You use your ab muscles for pretty much all movement, and right now, those muscles are not happy,” Claire noted. “I would try to stay as still as possible.”

Elektra glared at her as if this were her fault. Claire could sense she was going to be a _great_ patient. “I don’t like to stay still,” she said.

“That is not my problem.” Claire sat on the edge of the bed and waved the thermometer at her. “Open up.”

As she’d thought, Elektra’s temperature was elevated but nothing to worry about, not yet anyway. “How’s the pain?” Elektra didn’t even bother to answer, just glared. Claire thought about trying to coax a one to ten rating out of her, but honestly, she felt she was more than fulfilling her civic duty already. “You hungry?”

“Thirsty,” Elektra said. Claire helped her drink some water and let her pull herself up to a semi-recumbent position with her arms. “Where’s Matthew?”

“He went to work.”

“He left us alone together?” Elektra asked, quirking her eyebrows.

“I don’t think you’re in much of a position to harm me,” Claire pointed out dryly. “Also it’s possible that he was sleep deprived and not thinking clearly.”

“Perhaps I’m not the danger. You might try to smother me with a pillow while I’m weak,” Elektra rejoined. “Or you could poison me and make it look like the wound killed me.”

Claire laughed and took back the empty water glass. Elektra looked startled at the sound and then tried to arrange her face to make it look like that had been her plan all along. It was almost cute, her confusion at the sound of honest laughter. Sad, but cute. “You’re safe with me,” Claire assured her.

Elektra frowned. “More water, please?”

“Well that almost sounded genuine. I’ll be right back.” Claire didn’t want her to drink too much — getting her to the bathroom was going to be pretty awkward. Before Matt had his suit, he’d always sent her away while he recovered — and he’d never obeyed her dictates to stay in bed anyway. Nevertheless, she couldn’t let Elektra dehydrate just because she didn’t have a catheter handy.

Peeing was not the only awkward thing they would have to endure that afternoon, Claire realized when she brought the water back. For instance: what did they talk about now? _So, you really are a killer, huh? On a scale from one to ten, how much would you say you are still in love with my boyfriend?_ “You can probably be moved tomorrow or the next day,” Claire said. “Unless you get a private ambulance, they could come get you anytime.”

“The Yakuza know where I live,” Elektra said. “I mean, they know about my apartment here in New York. It wouldn’t be wise to return there while I’m defenseless.”

“Isn’t that what hotels are for?” Claire asked before she could stop herself. She usually tried to be nicer to people with gut wounds, but Elektra made it difficult.

Elektra’s lips quirked into what almost seemed to be a smile. “Yes, I suppose I could check into some medical suite under a false name and be waited on hand and foot.”

That was probably true. It was a crime how much medicine differed for the rich and the poor in New York City; Claire should set Matt on _that_ one. Less dangerous than ninjas, and possibly more effective at improving people’s lives.

“But?” Claire prompted.

Elektra’s eyes softened and flickered away from Claire though her lips continued smiling. “But I’m afraid I can’t bear the thought of it just now. I’m sorry.”

Ah. Claire noted with a clinical eye that Elektra’s hands were shaking a little, gripping the water glass. She was still fragile, this close to a major injury. “It’s fine. You need to rest, and you can do it here for as long as you need to. Matt would probably sign the apartment over to you if it came to that and sing a hosanna when he did.”

“He does have a martyr complex, that boy, doesn’t he?” Elektra mused. She let Claire take the glass away and joined her hands tightly on her lap instead.

“He does, but in this case I don’t think he’d see it as a sacrifice.” She didn’t know what she was going to say until it was out of her mouth, but as soon as it was out she knew it was true. Elektra’s eyes shot back to Claire’s and there was such naked _hope_ on her face for a second it made Claire flush to witness.

Now that she was more rested, Claire could better parse the meaning of Matt holding Elektra’s hand, could read that look in his eyes she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge before. Of course, he’d had a shock. Nothing like fearing for someone’s life to make all the feelings rise up all at once. But there had been feelings there waiting to rise, that was quite clear now. She supposed it had been clear all along, but she hadn’t wanted to see it, or she’d trusted that it didn’t matter. Now she wasn’t so sure. Did she think Matt had acted on those feelings? No. Did she want to be the one to stand in his way if he _wanted_ to?

“Thank you for helping me,” Elektra said into the silence.

“It’s my job,” Claire said reflexively.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Elektra said, her voice cool and utterly dismissive. “Your job is to treat people who come to the little hospital you work at. You did this because you’re ‘good,’ like Matthew.”

“There are a lot of reasons that Matt does what he does, and a lot of reasons I do what I do,” Claire said, refusing to let Elektra rattle her or put her in a neat and dismissible box. “And my guess is there are a lot of reasons you do what you do too.”

Elektra let out a breathy huff, almost a laugh. “What a relativist you are. Does Matthew know?”

“Matt knows all about me. But I’m not a relativist. I believe in good and bad. I just don’t believe in good and bad _people_.”

Elektra was silent at that. She looked tired again, as if the twenty minutes of talk had exhausted her. It probably had. She was still less than twenty-four hours out from a major wound.

“Let me take your pulse,” Claire said, “then you should try to go back to sleep.”

Elektra extended one thin wrist and Claire took it between her finger and thumb. Elektra’s skin felt hotter now; Claire hoped the fever wasn’t rising. She had tiny wrists, bones protruding. The way Matt described fighting with her, Claire assumed that Elektra was a skilled martial artist, but it was hard to believe the wrist she held now could support the weight of a thrown punch. Elektra’s pulse was a little fast, but nothing worrying. Claire looked up from her watch and met Elektra’s eyes just before she let go. Elektra was watching her expressionlessly, her eyes enormous and dark and searching.

“You won’t leave?” Elektra asked as Claire stood up to go back into the living room.

“No, I’ll be here until Matt comes home from work,” Claire promised. “Try to rest.”

Elektra nodded and eased herself down onto the pillows. Claire made herself turn away, go into the other room. Elektra didn’t need Claire to watch her fall asleep, though Claire had a strange impulse to do just that.

 

It was not quite an hour later that the ninja came through the window and tried to kill Claire. She was on the couch, half-awake, half-reading up on gut wounds on Medline, and she barely even saw him enter before he was on her. She rolled off the couch, barely escaping his first flying kick, and then scrambled for her phone, though how in the hell was Matt going to get here in time anyway? Fuck.

There was a short, sharp struggle, flailing limbs and Claire trying simultaneously to strike and to curl into a ball and protect her vital organs. She was hauled upward, a sharp pain on her arm, blood, she heard her own voice cry out. There was a blade at her throat. She made herself open her eyes to see the man who was going to kill her.

She was looking right at him when Elektra slashed his throat open. Blood gushed out, onto Claire, onto the floor. Elektra’s bandages caught some of the spray, or perhaps she had reopened her wound getting out of bed.

“Still believe there aren’t good and bad people?” Elektra asked, staring down at her own bloody hand holding a kitchen knife.

Claire could see her swaying and lunged upwards just in time to keep Elektra from toppling over on top of the dead man. They balanced there precariously for a moment, Claire’s arms wrapped around Elektra’s sagging torso, the knife dripping blood. Claire was not sure how she was keeping the other woman upright. She was not even sure how she was keeping herself upright. She felt like she was shaking, should be shaking. Elektra smiled. “Now we’re even,” she murmured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure this Elektra/Claire thing is happening, guys. Based on how much easier and more fun it has been recently to write Claire & Elektra interacting, Matt will be lucky if he does not get entirely left in the dust on this one.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire gives Matt space to make a decision, whether he wants it or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RL has been a bitch recently, sorry for the long delays between chapters. Even though I know I promised some exciting future pairings, there are still a lot of feelings for everyone to work through first so this is more of a place-setting chapter for the next stage of the story. Will get there eventually, I promise!

When Matt opened his apartment door he knew right away that there was a dead body inside. “Elektra? Claire?” he called out, trying not to panic.

“We’re fine, Matt,” Claire’s voice called from the bedroom. He dropped to a crouch beside the dead body and felt its face, found the knife wound in its throat. A man, Matt thought, but it was much harder to tell with a dead body, and the face felt smooth, a young man maybe. He stood and walked into the bedroom.

They were both there, hearts beating only a little fast. Elektra was in the bed, as he’d left her, Claire beside it. They both smelled of his shampoo and the faint tang of blood clinging to them. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Claire stood up and walked over to him and he instinctively reached for her, needing to feel her warmth, her slim strength. She had a bandage on her arm and was moving more slowly than usual. “You’re hurt,” he said, sliding a hand carefully around her waist and pulling her closer.

“A ninja attacked me,” Claire said. She put a hand on his chest but he wasn’t sure if it was for comfort or to hold him away. “Elektra saved my life.”

“By killing him,” Matt said, just to confirm.

“Yes,” Elektra said from the bed. “I killed him.”

“She had to,” Claire said. “She was too weak to engage him in a fight.”

“She could have knocked him out,” Matt found himself arguing, without even really meaning to. Elektra gave a short, humorless laugh and Claire pulled out of his arms.

“Believe me, I would rather not have spent the last hour cleaning blood off myself and the floor,” Claire pointed out, “but it all happened fast. No time to weigh the nuances.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Matt said, reaching for her again but she’d already moved away. “The important thing is that you’re okay. Both of you.”

“Elektra reopened her wound getting to me,” Claire said. “I had to redo the stitches, but I think it should be fine.”

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.” He imagined another scenario, one in which Elektra had not been able to get out of bed in time, had not had the strength to do what she did — pushing open the door to smell the tang of their blood, finding their bodies there, Claire on the floor in the living room, Elektra in his bed, cold and lifeless. Oh god. He sat down on the edge of the bed and put his face in his hands, struck too late with terror and guilt. He should have been here to protect them.

Claire touched his hair, her hand lightly stroking the agony away. “I was going to call you. We just finished cleaning up.”

“It’s not safe here,” Matt said, his mind beginning to churn through the implications. If one ninja found them, would there be more coming? “We have to get you somewhere safe.”

“ _I_ have to go to work,” Claire said.

“What? You can’t, it might not be safe.”

“He wasn’t after me, I was just in his way,” Claire pointed out. “It will probably be safer for me at the hospital than anywhere with you.”

Matt cursed under his breath but he knew she was right. He was a magnet for pain and suffering, and Elektra had a way of making that pull even stronger. He should never have pulled Claire into any of this to begin with.

“How will we manage without you though?” Elektra murmured.

There was a long silence as something passed between Claire and Elektra Matt could not quite follow — a look, expressions he could not read. What had happened here, in the hours he was gone?

“Can we talk outside for a minute?” Claire asked and Matt stood, heavily, followed her into the living room.

“I’ll just stay here then,” Elektra called as Claire shut the door behind them.

Matt reached for her again, thinking her hesitance inside was due to Elektra watching them, but Claire still held back. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I am so sorry, Claire. I should have been here.”

Claire glanced at the dead man at their feet and then led him away, towards the door. “Yes, you should have been,” she agreed. “But wallowing in the failure, while kind of your thing, is not helpful right now.”

“What is helpful right now?” Matt asked. She found a piece of wall to lean against and rubbed at her face. She seemed so tired. He wanted to scoop her up and put her to bed and keep her there, protecting her from all the ugliness of his world, but there were complications with that plan. A lot of complications.

Claire’s hand dropped down to press against the wall and she turned her face straight up to his as she said, “You figuring out what you really want. That would be extremely helpful.”

Matt opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but she shook her head before he could get the words out. He knew what she meant.

“When you told me about her, you said it was in the long-distant past. Maybe you believed it at the time; I hope you did, since I asked you not to lie to me.”

“I did believe it,” Matt assured her. He put one hand on either side of her body, leaned his weight into the wall as he listened.

“We all know that’s no longer true though. Whatever is going on, it’s very much in the present. And you need to sort that shit out, Matt. This, all of this — the medical emergencies, and being _attacked_ in the middle of the afternoon —“ her voice broke, finally, and he wanted to hold her, comfort her, but sensed it was not the right moment. “—it’s all hard enough, without the uncertainty of wondering if you really want to be with me, or if you are choosing me because I fit your idea of what you should want.”

“No, Claire—“

“Listen, Matt, I heard your voice just now speaking to Elektra. You told me what happened in the fight when she got hurt. You hate that she’s willing to kill, and I get that. She’s fucking scary and I’ve only known her for about two days. But if that is the only thing standing between you, if in every other way she is your perfect woman and you are sticking with me because you can’t give up your moral compass to be with her — that’s not enough. That’s not enough for me.”

“Listen to _me_ ,” Matt said urgently. “That is not why I want to be with you. I love you Claire. I loved you and chose you when Elektra was on the other side of the world, for all I knew or cared. She ran away and left me. I can never trust her, and not just because she’s a killer. I trust you. Please, trust me on this.”

Her hands came up and framed his face, so warm, calloused from work. “I do trust you, Matt,” Claire assured him. He leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers and she bent her neck back until their lips met, softly. He captured her lower lip between his teeth and sucked on it lightly. She sighed into his mouth and then broke the kiss. “I trust you, and that’s why I want to give you time and space to figure this out. I hear what you’re saying about Elektra, but I still think there are unresolved feelings there. You may not want them, but they exist. I want you to acknowledge them and deal with them. And _then_ make a decision. I’m giving you permission to have those feelings, okay? And you just come find me when you’re ready.”

A sudden wave of rage swept over him, and Matt smacked a hand against the wall by Claire’s head. She jumped. “Sorry,” he muttered. She ducked out from the circle of his arms and he turned to follow her. “I’m tired of Elektra ruining my life,” he growled. “Yesterday, she beat up this lawyer and I had to explain to Foggy and we got in a fight, now she’s convinced you—“

“Stop it, Matt!” He stopped, alternate waves of anger and shame battering him. “Listen to yourself. Elektra has not ruined your life. _You_ are responsible for your relationship with Foggy, and your relationship with me, not Elektra. You should have fucking told Foggy the truth when she first showed up. And what I am asking you to do right now is tell yourself the truth. That’s it. If you can’t do that, then it’s on you, not her. But I really hope you can.”

It was the same thing Foggy had said and it brought Matt up short. He hadn’t been lying, not to Claire. Elektra just made everything so confusing, so twisted— He stopped himself, recognizing that if he said those words out loud, Claire would only berate him harder. Maybe he deserved it.

Claire gathered her stuff while Matt stood silently, trying to think of what to say that would make her forgive him. Maybe it wasn’t even forgiveness. What to say that would make her stay. But even as he thought it some part of her knew she was right, was relieved. He did have feelings for Elektra still. Only the night before she had almost died and he had felt as if he too was dying. He hadn’t thought of Claire then, except for needing her help.

“I’ll call you to check on Elektra,” she said finally into the silence.

“Claire.”

She touched his face, leaned up to press a brief, soft kiss to his lips. “It’ll be okay, Matt. You’ll see.”

He reached for her, but a second too late, and she was already on her way out the door.

 

Elektra was, as she’d said, right where he’d left her. Part of him expected her to do one of her quick disappearances, but she _was_ still gravely injured. He leaned against the doorway and drank her in, the sound of her breathing and the rush of blood through her veins. Her hair was still wet. He wondered if she’d been able to stand up in the shower by herself, if Claire had to help her get dressed and undressed. He had a sudden mental image of the two of them, naked, covered in water and blood, and had to shake it off. Not the time for that particular fantasy.

“How much of that did you hear?” he asked.

“I heard the bit about how I am always ruining your life,” Elektra said. Her voice was light, nonchalant, with its usual echoes of pain.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“No, it’s true. That was my evil plan, actually. I thought if I made you angry enough, separated you from all the people you love, that you would turn to me. You wouldn’t be able to help yourself.”

It wasn’t a terrible plan. It could have worked. In a way, it was working. Here they were, all alone. “Why are you telling me this?” Matt asked.

“I suppose I am feeling guilty. Or maudlin. I rather like Claire, you know. She was much less judgmental about my murdering ways than you.”

“It was self-defense. Or defense of her, anyway,” Matt pointed out.

“Yes, well. Perhaps I could have knocked him out.”

“And perhaps it wouldn’t have worked and you would both be dead now. I would never have been able to forgive myself.”

“Does that mean you are forgiving me?” Elektra asked, her voice rather small, almost afraid.

“I guess it does.” He closed his eyes, not that it mattered. They ached a little. He was so tired. He hadn’t slept for… thirty-six hours? Now he had to get rid of the body in his living room.

“You ought to rest, Matthew,” Elektra said.

“Body first,” he said.

“It will keep a few more hours. Just take a little nap,” she suggested. “There is room. You can sleep on top of the covers.” She patted the bed beside her.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, eyeing her bandaged torso.

“You won’t. You sleep like a rock, as I recall.” In college they had slept together even in his narrow single bed, every inch of their bodies pressed together.

“Just a little while,” he said, drifting towards the bed. He could already smell the decay beginning on the body. But he was so tired.

“Yes, just a little while,” Elektra agreed. He kicked off his shoes and lay down, careful not to bounce the mattress. He felt her hand in his hair just before he fell asleep.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra tells Matt the truth about her past and her present. Plus Matt does some fantasizing.

_She feels like fire, tastes like fire, sounds like fire: the inferno of her cunt wrapped around him, the sweat on her throat, her low rasping hisses in his ear. “Harder,” she whispers in Elektra’s throaty accent, and then, “Yes, Matt,” Claire moans. He is only instinct, his hips jackhammering up into her, his hands on her hips grinding her down to meet his thrusts. Her hands are in his hair, her teeth against his shoulder, he can feel her breasts against his back — four hands — Claire and Elektra kiss, they are around him, in him, he is claiming them, he is burning—_

Matt woke up with a strangled snap of awareness. He was curled on his side in his own bed, spooning Elektra. His cock was rock hard, nestled between her ass cheeks — though separated by several layers of clothes and at least one sheet — and based on her breathing, she was awake and very much aware of the situation. They both held as still as possible.

“You’re up,” Elektra murmured. He imagined if he could see her face, he would see that she was smirking. She shifted her hips ever-so-slightly back, eliciting an indrawn breath and gritted teeth from him as he struggled not to thrust forward against her soft flesh.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“I’d guess around seven.”

“In the evening?”

“In the morning, sleepyhead.”

Matt sat up abruptly, despite his erection’s vehement protests. “The body!”

“I took care of it,” Elektra assured him. She turned onto her back, reached out a hand to touch his arm.

“What did you do?”

“What do you think? I ate it.” She bared her teeth at him, then laughed, probably at the expression on his face. “I had some people I know come and get it. You were exhausted. The fact that you didn’t so much as stir proved that you needed the sleep.”

He relaxed a little, though the thought of anyone — even, or maybe particularly, one of Elektra’s men — coming into his apartment to remove a dead body was concerning. What if they kept evidence that could pin it to him? What if they didn’t dispose of it properly? Not that he knew how to dispose of a body. He had never killed anyone. He supposed Elektra knew.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, thought about standing up and then thought better of it. He was still in his work clothes, though Elektra seemed to have removed his tie and unbuttoned his collar while he slept. What else had she done? “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I was better a minute ago.” Elektra’s voice was a low purr that went straight to his cock. “Wouldn’t you like to lie back down?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Matt said.

“Why, because you might finish what you started?”

“You’re injured,” Matt pointed out. “And I have a girlfriend.”

Elektra made a little dismissive noise in her throat. “I am fine. And your girlfriend practically pushed you into bed with me. What do you think she meant by ‘dealing with’ your unresolved feelings?”

Matt’s still sleepy mind boggled. What had Claire meant? Surely not that he should sleep with Elektra. He sighed and pushed himself to standing, aware that she could probably see his remaining half-an-erection through his pants. “I’m going to take a shower. You okay for a few minutes?”

“I’ll survive.” An indrawn breath suggested she had more to say, but no words followed. He walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind himself. He didn’t need a shower as much as a moment alone. He turned on the water and shed his clothes, not allowing himself to think about Elektra’s body pressed up against his until he was fully immersed in the water. He took his revived erection in hand, fisting it slowly as he leaned his head back under the spray, and gave his fantasies free reign. Elektra hadn’t been wearing any pants, just a pair of his boxer shorts, easily slid down to reveal her perfect pear-shaped ass, sleek and muscled but with just the right mount of give. Between her legs she’d be slick and ready, he’d grip her hips hard, knees pushing her thighs open just enough to fuck into her. He could still remember how tight and hot she’d been, like nothing he’d ever experienced before or since. She’d fight him a little, for control, push back into his thrusts, arching her back trying to gain leverage, he could see it, the small of her back so perfect bowing away from him. An image from his dream entered the fantasy, Claire’s face, head thrown back in ecstasy, beneath Elektra, and Elektra was thrusting herself back into him and forward against Claire at the same time. It was too much. Matt braced himself against the wall and squeezed the head of his dick as he came, ejaculating onto his hand and the shower floor. He opened his mouth to the spray of water and part of him wished that it would drown him.

 

When Matthew emerged from the shower, Elektra tried a different tack. It was becoming clear that he could not be fooled into loving her. Maybe awakening his anger as a route towards his passion would have worked in a different situation, if he had been single or casually dating. But he was too good to hurt Claire accidentally. Besides, Claire herself had given Elektra another option: Matthew could choose her.

It was hard not to make a suggestive comment when he was wearing only a towel though. She let her gaze linger over his chiseled abs, the scars, the fresh bruises, the tension in his muscles, the missed droplets of water she would like to lick off. But aloud she said only, “I have to tell you something.”

Matthew must have read something off of her body that suggested low blood sugar. “Let’s have breakfast first. And coffee.”

He pulled sweatpants and a white cotton t-shirt from his bureau and took them back into the bathroom to dress. She tried not to be too disappointed. He made them scrambled eggs and toast and coffee and brought her all three in bed. Her wound still hurt but the pain had faded a little; she was able to push herself up to seated now. He sat in the chair that Claire had sat in the day before and they ate breakfast together in silence that was not quite companionable. Elektra almost lost her nerve, and then steeled it, and then almost lost it again.

After he took her plate away, he came back and sat in the chair and said, “Okay, let’s talk.”

“I didn’t say we need to talk,” Elektra pointed out. “I said I have to tell you something.”

His lips quirked up a little at the edges. “Okay, you talk then.”

She turned her head to look at the wall. She did not want to see his face when he heard what she was going to say. She didn’t want to have to carry that with her forever. “When we first met, back in college, I had been sent to find you. Stick trained me to fight; he was my mentor, my father almost. He wanted you back, and he thought I could seduce you into joining him… joining us, I suppose. I didn’t know what it would be like. After I met you, everything changed, and I… what I mean to say is that it was real, for me, as real as it was for you. But still. I had been sent.”

There was a long silence and Elektra was too scared to turn her face back and look at him.

“How did I not know you were lying to me?” Matthew asked finally.

“I wasn’t lying,” Elektra responded swiftly, more vehemently than she had meant to. She turned to look at him finally. His face was a mask, showing nothing, which was worse than if he’d looked hurt or angry. “I never lied to you, not about anything important. I told you my name, my family, my dreams for the future. You never asked if someone sent me or how I was trained. I think you were afraid of the answer.” She did not mention that she had long ago learned how to control her heartrate and other telltale signs of lying; a girl had to have a few secrets.

He swallowed but did not deny it. “I was too in love with you to care,” he said after a long minute.

“And now?” she made herself ask. His face lifted to hers for a moment and there was a flash of everything she’d wanted and dreaded to see — pain, rage, hatred — before he controlled himself.

“I thought you knew me,” he said. “I thought you understood me better than anyone ever had. But you came in knowing about my abilities. You didn’t discern how special I was because of our special connection — you targeted me.”

“Yes.” Still, she had been unprepared for him. It was not his abilities themselves, because he had less control over them than Stick, less power, but his wonder, his joy in sharing them, which had blown her away.

“And then when you couldn’t turn me, couldn’t get me to kill — that was it? You failed your mission so you just left?” His voice was turning savage now.

“It wasn’t like that,” Elektra insisted. “When you wouldn’t kill Roscoe Sweeney, I knew that… I knew that you would never be able to forgive me. If you could not kill the one man who had destroyed your life, how could you ever accept me for what I was? What I am. I was so scared you would find out and hate me.”

“What are you?”

Elektra closed her eyes. “What do you think?”

“You have to say it.”

She opened them and looked at him, his beloved face. He looked so tired now. He did not want to hear it anymore than she wanted to say it, but perhaps it must be said. He knew already, even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself. “An assassin.”

“No.”

“If it helps, I am not a mercenary. I kill for the greater good.” She could hear the bitterness in her voice although she could not stop it.

“You have to stop.” His voice was so firm, so sure. Yet he had already forgiven her for killing one man in the last twenty-four hours. Did he not see that each death could be called defensive, if one’s scale was large enough? The men and women she killed would go on to kill others if she did not take their lives. No prison could hold them. No legal system could prosecute them. But Matthew did not like shades of gray, and he would not like that argument.

“Alright,” she heard herself say. “I’ll stop.”

“Really?”

“If you’ll forgive me, I’ll stop.”

He did not reply right away and she held her breath with wanting him so much to say yes. It was an entirely unfair request; he would see all those future deaths as on his account if he said no. She was counting on that. He needed the extra incentive.

“Why did you come back now?” he asked finally. “Is it another mission?”

“No, not exactly. I knew there were things — people — coming to New York that you would not be able to handle on your own. When Stick found out I was coming, he did ask me to try to persuade you again, to use the conflict to bring you over to his side. I refused. I learnt that lesson, I think. I came to help you, Matthew. And I came because I missed you.”

He gave a little incredulous laugh. “You missed me? It’s been ten years.”

“Did you ever stop missing me?” Elektra asked, trying to keep her voice light though she thought she might die if he answered wrong.

He sobered at that. “No.”

“Then don’t doubt me.”                            

He thought for another moment and then nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay, you believe me?”

“Okay, I forgive you.”

A warm buzzing feeling filtered through Elektra’s skin, settled into her stomach. He forgave her. She did not care about being forgiven in and of itself — she did not really believe she had sinned — but she knew that without it, they had no chance. The fact that he wanted to believe her, that he wanted her to change, meant that he still wanted her. He cared.

She reached out and took his hand in both of hers. He did not resist, did not try to take it back. She lifted it to her mouth and brushed her lips against his muscles, breathing more than kissing. Without her urging his hand slid over her cheek, stroked her jaw, slid down her throat to find where her pulse beat. She wanted to arch into his touch like a cat. How could his hands have such an effect when so many others had left her cold?

“I feel free,” she whispered.

“You are free,” he replied, his voice hushed too, as if whatever was happening between them now could be startled away by loud noises or sudden movements. His thumb found her mouth again and she parted her lips, let him feel her teeth and tongue. His lips followed. His mouth was warm and firm, still for a moment against hers and then his head tilted just so and his tongue was opening her, so sure of his welcome, so welcome, and his hand slid down her body to pull her closer and—

Matthew must have felt her pain even before she did. He pulled back abruptly, hand dropping away from her injury. “It’s fine,” she said, reaching for him, desperate to have him touch her again, but based on the look on his face she suspected the moment was dead. His face was remote, closed. He was remembering how she had been hurt or perhaps remembering Claire, who had saved her life.

She didn’t want Matthew to remember Claire, not after kissing her. She wanted her kiss to wipe everything else from his mind, the way he had wiped everything else from her life. She had come to New York for him. Promised to give up her work for him. Never felt anything like the way she felt when he touched her. Yet he was frowning, when he should have been in ecstasy.

The disappointment made her savage. “Well,” she said with a smirk, “have you decided what you want yet?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire and her sister get drunk, watch Lemonade, and discuss the situation with Matt and Elektra, and then an unexpected guest drops by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm rolling now! Hope you all enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. Highly recommend listening to/watching Lemonade before, during, and after reading this, especially if you have not heard it yet.

Three days after leaving a dead body and a live ex-girlfriend in Matt’s apartment, Claire finally had a night off from work. She had not heard from Matt, except a couple texts to say that Elektra was healing fine and he hoped Claire was doing okay. She did not respond to these. She expected him to show up on the rooftop during one of her breaks, or come to her apartment during one of her mornings off, but there was no sign of him. The silence was pretty telling.

So on her night off she did not call Matt. Instead she called her sister Rosa and said, “Matt’s crazy ex-girlfriend is back in town, and I think he’s still in love with her.” Rosa screeched, “That _motherfucker_ ,” and then added slightly more calmly, “I’ll be over in an hour.”

An hour and a half later Rosa showed up at Claire’s apartment with two bottles of wine (“one for you, one for me, and I’m throwing away the corks so drink the fuck up”) and the _Lemonade_ visual album. Claire was usually more of an alt-rock girl, but Rosa was insistent, so Bey and wine it was.

Halfway through the second song, while Beyoncé roamed the streets with a baseball bat smashing in cars and singing, _Hold up, they don’t love you like I love you_ , Claire paused the video and turned to Rosa and said, “I don’t know if I love him more than she does.”

Rosa raised her eyes to the heavens. “Let me guess, you’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing? No I’m not.” Claire had downed her first glass of wine, thankful for the slight blurring it provided around the edges of her anxiety. Now she was halfway through the second, loosening enough to want to talk about this.

“Oh my god, you totally are.” Claire arched her brows in query and Rosa sighed and said, “That thing where you don’t want to be left so you leave first. You say you’re being mature and you don’t want drama, but for real you are just forfeiting in the middle of the game because you don’t want to lose.”

“What? That metaphor doesn’t make any sense. Forfeiting _is_ losing.”

“Exactly!” Claire gave her sister another baffled look and Rosa waved her off. “You tell me what happened, and I will explain how you are doing that thing.”

Claire gave as short and coherent a summary as she could manage, leaving out the ninjas and the part where her rival could actually kill her. She also did not mention the half-clothed shower she and Elektra had taken together to wash off the blood after Elektra killed a man right in front of her. That had been… weird. “So I told Matt he needs to make a choice,” she concluded. “And I’ve barely heard from him for three days. So… I guess he made it.” Her voice cracked a little and she took another gulp of wine. Shit. She did not want to cry in front of Rosa. She did not want to cry at all.

“You see, you are _totally_ doing it,” Rosa said, although more gently now. She rubbed Claire’s leg soothingly, even as she said, “Leaving _your_ boyfriend with another girl, so that he can ‘choose’ _is_ the thing. It’s the thing you do!”

“Since I did it, it is _a_ thing I do, but I still don’t see what it has to do with forfeiting,” Claire responded grumpily. “Or how it’s a pattern.”

Rosa gave a little growl of frustration. “Because you gave up on him!”

“No I didn’t! I trusted him to make a mature, thoughtful decision. I don’t want to be with a man who doesn’t want me!” Claire insisted.

“Men are idiots!” Rosa responded, her volume rising to meet and exceed Claire’s. “You can’t leave them alone like that and expect them to work it out! You need to show him what he has to lose.”

Claire stared at her sister, somehow unable to respond. She felt like her stomach had dropped into her toes. What if Rosa was right? What if her ‘mature’ action had led to her losing Matt forever?

It was hard to tell who was more surprised when Claire suddenly burst into tears. Rosa was instantly contrite, cuddling her baby sister and rubbing her back as she incoherently sobbed variants of, “can’t lose him” and “love him” and “why?” Claire would have been embarrassed if it were anyone else, but she and Rosa had seen each other at their worst many times, and Rosa would not hold her short but intense storm of tears over her head.

“What if I did push him away?” Claire asked when she could talk in full sentences again. “What if I lost him?”

“You didn’t,” Rosa soothed her. “It’s not too late. And if it is, then fuck him. He should have lived up to your expectations. And fuck him for this whole situation anyway! Fucking ex-girlfriend back in town. That is some straight up bullshit.”

“She’s really hot,” Claire admitted, scrubbing the remnants of tears out of her eyes. She finished her second glass of wine. “And they’re a lot alike. I mean, I can see why he’s into her.”

“No,” Rosa said firmly. “You are not justifying his actions to me right now. You are incredible, Claire, and he was so fucking lucky you gave him a chance. I don’t care if this woman was Queen Bey, he should not have glanced in her direction.”

Claire took a deep breath and then let it out. “Let’s watch some more of the movie,” she said. “More wine, please.”

So Rosa poured them both more wine, and they cheered Beyoncé on in her monster truck, and Jack White even showed up on the next song, which made Claire happy, and there was some poetry about wearing the other woman’s ribs as a hat and making his one perfect girl that made Claire think woozily about a woman who was her and Elektra mashed together, but that didn’t make any sense because they were so different, really. Not because one was good and one was bad, but because one destroyed and one healed, and one was passionate and the other pragmatic, and because, because… because Claire might be a little bit drunk.

There was a song about a woman in six-inch heels and Claire pointed out morosely that it sounded like it could have been written about Elektra. “She’s a stripper?” Rosa asked. “She murdered everybody,” Claire sighed.

Rosa stopped the movie before it got to the reconciliation bits. “Not tonight,” she said. She started it again from the beginning. This time even Claire sang along a little bit and they had a small dance party. The three glasses of wine helped. “When you hurt me, your hurt yourself, don’t hurt yourself!” She did a little Jack White on the guitar. Rosa tried to twerk with her middle fingers up and fell over.

Shortly into the third watch, there was a knock on Claire’s door. Claire looked at Rosa, confused, before realizing it was her apartment and she should probably be the one to answer the door. Maybe it was Matt. He came to the door sometimes like a normal person, especially if someone else was around. She felt a surge of excitement, followed by apprehension and anger. Not the best time. And why the hell hadn’t he come before?

It was not Matt. Elektra was standing in the hall, looking quite different than the last time Claire saw her (wet-haired and make-up-less, wearing Matt’s t-shirt and boxers, blood still seeping through her new bandages). Now she was wearing a blue sheathe dress with black leather insets and heels, her perfectly straight hair sleekly tucked behind her ears, her lips a perfect matte red.

“Hello, Claire. I hope I’m not interrupting?” She had said the same thing when she spied on them eating Thai food, Claire recalled.

“You're interrupting my life,” Claire said, too drunk not to be blunt.

Elektra smiled, as she seemed always to do in the face of insults. “Can I come in?”

“Who the fuck is this?” Rosa asked. _They don't love you like I love you_ , Beyoncé sang.

Shit, Claire did not want Elektra to meet her sister. She hadn’t been joking when she said Elektra was scary, and Rosa didn't know anything about any of this. She couldn't. “You better go, Rosa,” she said, stepping back to let Elektra into the apartment. “It’s late anyway. You have work tomorrow.”

“And I’m going to be hungover as shit for it,” Rosa noted. She eyed Elektra with clear distaste and grabbed Claire’s arm. In what was probably supposed to be a whisper Rosa asked, “Are you sure you’re okay? You want me to beat her up for you?”

“No!” Claire could see Elektra’s smile from the corner of her eye. Nope, nope, nope. “I’m fine. You go on. Thanks for the wine.”

It took a few minutes to gather Rosa’s stuff and get her out of the door. Elektra meanwhile seated herself on the couch and watched _Lemonade_ with an interested eye. Claire was hoping that the interlude would help her sober up, but she felt just as disadvantaged when the door closed behind Rosa. Shit, why had she let Elektra in? She was totally drunk, and Elektra was not.

“May I?” Elektra asked, picking up one of the wine bottles which was not quite empty. Claire gestured for her to help herself. Elektra filled Rosa’s abandoned glass and took a deep drink. Her mouth left a red imprint on the glass.

“What are you doing here?” Claire asked.

_Suck on my balls, pause, I had enough_ , B sang. _I ain’t thinking bout you._

Elektra laughed. “I rather like that.”

Claire shut the laptop.

Elektra looked up at her and deliberately leaned back on the couch. “I need to talk to you.”

“So talk.” Claire slumped into a chair. The part of her that was still a nurse wondered how her patient was. There was no sign of a bulky bandage beneath Elektra’s dress.

Elektra nodded and looked down into her wine glass, then flicked her eyes up at Claire again. “Matthew is not doing very well,” she said, her voice still conversational. “He’s having a difficult time with all of this. Worse than I anticipated.”

“What does that mean?”

“He won’t speak to me. I know he hasn’t been to see you. He works on his case all day and doesn’t sleep at night.”

“How do you know that he doesn’t sleep?”

“Because I’ve been watching him.”

“What about your injury?” Claire asked.

Elektra waved a hand. “It’s much better. We are trained to heal ourselves more quickly than normal. I’m not 100% but I can manage to follow Matthew about. He’s picking stupid fights. He’s punishing himself because he can’t decide what to do. And punishing both of us too, I think.”

Claire gnawed on the inside of her lip, trying to piece this all together. If Elektra was telling the truth, it wasn’t that Matt had chosen Elektra, or that Claire had fucked it all up, it was that he hadn’t been able to choose at all. Which meant Claire still had a shot. Right? Right. Right?

“So what are we supposed to do?” Claire asked, unaware that she’d said “we” as if they were a team and not on opposite sides of this fight.

“You could tell him that you are withdrawing from the field,” Elektra said. “Isn’t that what you already said, that you only wanted him if he chose you? Well if he can’t choose, that’s not choosing you, is it?” Her voice was silkily persuasive, reasonable.

“Suck on my balls,” Claire said.

There was a moment of stunned silence and then Elektra laughed. Had Claire seen her laugh before, actually genuinely laugh? She was beautiful when her façade broke: in the shower, washing off the blood with that half-proud, half-terrified look on her face, and in Matt’s bed, vulnerable and frightening in equal measure. Claire shook her head as if she could shake the images out.

“Well, that was not what I thought you would say, but… I’m almost glad,” Elektra admitted. “I think I would have been disappointed if you’d just given up now.”

“You’re crazy,” Claire stated baldly. “You can give up anytime and go back to wherever you came from, thanks.”

Elektra looked down again. A little small smile touched her lips. “Yes, I suppose I could. But you see I promised Matthew I would change. I can’t go back to where I came from and keep my promise. And… I don’t think I can give him up.”

Could Claire? She didn’t want to, but _could_ she? She thought she could. She’d lived without him before and she would do it again. Did that mean she _should_ give up? Maybe the question was who needed Matt more. But what about what Matt needed? Claire knew she was good for him. She knew it. Elektra pulled him too much to be Daredevil. She couldn’t ground him the way Claire could.

Claire got up to get her wine glass, half full, and sat back down on the couch beside Elektra.

“Are we bonding right now?” Claire asked. “Cause it kind of feels like that, and it’s fucked up.”

Elektra laughed again, ran a hand through her hair so it swept over her shoulder, a shining cascade of black. “I don’t think I’ve ever ‘bonded’ with another woman, so I wouldn’t know.”

“It’s not usually quite like this.”

“I assumed.”

“You did give him up though,” Claire said, remembering suddenly. “You’re the one who left before.”

“I didn’t think it would be forever,” Elektra admitted. “I was young and scared. I thought either I’d come back or I’d forget, but I never did either. Matthew is… not easily forgotten.”

“Why did you leave?” Claire asked.

“Didn’t Matthew tell you?”

“Not in so many words.”

Elektra finished her glass of wine and picked up the bottle, but it was empty. “I arranged for him to take revenge on the man who killed his father. But he didn’t want the revenge. That is — he wanted it. He wanted it very much. But he wouldn’t take it all the way.”

“He wouldn’t kill him,” Claire guessed.

“Yes. I saw something in him then that’s not in me. Something good. I was afraid of it, and afraid he would know I didn’t have it and hate me.”

“So you abandoned the field,” Claire said triumphantly. She was not the only one!

“I suppose so.”

It was pretty different though, even Claire’s drunk mind could see that. Elektra left because she was frightened. Claire left — well, she didn’t leave, whatever Rosa said — she stepped back to give Matt space. Maybe she was a little frightened too, but she wasn’t running. Matt was the one who was running, not speaking to either of them.

“Do you think he sees it now?” Claire asked, frowning a little.

“Oh yes. I told him all my sins and then forced him to forgive me on pain of adding all my future sins to his tally.”

“I don’t think it works like that.”

“Not for God, but for Matthew? It worked well enough. He may hate me for it now, but he has already forgiven me and he can’t take it back. He hates me and loves me. I think sometimes that even if you’d agreed to withdraw your claim, he still wouldn’t choose me.”

Claire had an almost overwhelming and completely ridiculous desire to comfort the other woman, who sounded incredibly forlorn in that moment. What would she say? Of course he would choose you! Except I want him to choose me! This was weird. “He cares enough to not just choose me,” Claire said awkwardly, patting Elektra’s shoulder.

Elektra gave her an incredulous look. “Why are you being _kind_ to me?”

“Probably because I’m drunk,” Claire said honestly. “Also, if I’m being totally up front, which I guess I am, I get it. I mean, I get the two of you together. You both have this living-in the-shadows thing, and Matt is not _that_ good. I mean, he’s good, of course he is, but he likes the violence. He is always fighting that part of himself, or cutting it off, trying to pretend he doesn’t like it. I had to practically bully him into unleashing in bed—“ Elektra made a choking sound and Claire broke off. “Oh shit, I probably shouldn’t have said that, huh?”

“Does he — unleash — with you?” Elektra asked in a tone of fascination and horror.

“Fuck yeah.”

“Ah.”

Claire realized her hand was still on Elektra’s shoulder. She’d been comforting her? Claire traced a finger down the other woman’s arm, fascinated by how smooth her skin was. She must get lots of body scrubs.

“What are you doing?” Elektra asked. She sounded more amused than disturbed about it.

Claire snatched her hand back. “Sorry. I got distracted.”

“Evidently.” A pause and then, “You were saying, about Matthew and I?”

“What? Oh, just that I can see how you two fit. But it’s not enough. It’s not good for him, you know, to go too far towards that part of himself, to forget the other part.”

Elektra did not respond to that directly. She twisted in her seat, turning to look fully at Claire. Claire was so used to Matt now — signals from every part of him but his eyes — she had almost forgotten the force of a direct stare. Elektra’s stare had the force of a gale wind.

“How drunk are you?” Elektra asked.

“Drunk enough to say a lot of shit I am going to regret in the morning,” Claire guessed, “but not so drunk I’ll forget I said it.”

Elektra’s dark eyes softened a little and Claire relaxed infinitesimally. Elektra reached out and touched her cheek, softly, though Claire could feel the edge of her fingernail. She felt flushed everywhere except where Elektra touched her with cool, manicured fingers.

“Try not to forget this,” Elektra murmured, and leaned in to kiss her goodnight.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt visits a hungover Claire and there are a few confessions and a short summation of the problem.

Claire’s apartment had a different smell than normal — slightly sour, slightly stale. Claire was still asleep when Matt came through the window and she didn’t stir, so he took a moment to investigate. The culprits turned out to be on the coffee table — two mostly empty wine bottles, two wine glasses stained with residue. Who had Claire been drinking with? Her sister, probably. Matt drifted back into her room, sat on the edge of the bed. Claire’s breath smelled rancid too, and though she was dead to the world it wasn’t a peaceful, restful sleep. She would be hungover when she woke up, he decided. He hesitated, thought about leaving to let her sleep it off, but it was too late — she blinked, groaned, flung a hand over her eyes.

“Matt.”

“Sorry for waking you,” he said.

“It’s okay.” Her voice was a little raspy, sexy. She reached out to touch his thigh. He wasn’t even sure he should be here; he didn’t want her to assume he’d come because he’d made up his mind. He just couldn’t go any longer without seeing her, knowing if she was okay. His self-imposed withdrawal had not provided any clarity so far.

“How do you feel?” he asked, touching her temple very gently.

“Not great,” she admitted. “Last night, I—“ She broke off suddenly with a little gasp, as if she had just remembered something from the evening before. Not something good, he’d wager. She turned her face into the pillow and made a sound somewhere between a growl and a moan. His hand skirted over her hair, unsure what to do, what his role was right now, here, with her.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” he said, figuring he’d show her that he didn’t care whatever stupid thing she did the night before. This whole mess was his fault, and however she acted or reacted, it was her right. “I’ve been trying to do what you asked — get clarity on what I want — but I’ve… I haven’t, yet.”

She lifted her head at that, slowly and he suspected a little painfully. “Then why did you come?” she asked.

“Because I missed you,” he said honestly. “I’m sorry, I’ll leave. Let me get you some Advil first though.”

She grabbed his hand when he tried to stand up. “Don’t leave. You can get the Advil though.”

Ten minutes later she had swallowed three painkillers, a full glass of water, and a breath mint and was propped up in bed, looking — or feeling like she was looking — a little more lively.

“I missed you too,” she said when he sat back down on the edge of the bed. She reached for his hand, threaded her fingers through his. “I was afraid that I’d blown it, pushed you away. What I said before, Matt, I didn’t mean that I didn’t want you, or that I wouldn’t fight for what we have.”

He shook his head, bringing their hands up to his mouth and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “I never thought that. I knew you were giving me space to sort myself out. I’ve been trying. I’m sorry that it’s taking so long.”

She hesitated, looked down at her lap in a very un-Claire-like way and finally said, “I have to tell you something.”

He didn’t want her to confess some minor indiscretion to him like it mattered. He was on the one who had fucked up. He was the one who was in love with someone else. She shouldn't feel a moment’s pain for anything she had done in response to that. “No, let me go first,” he said, but she wasn’t waiting. Panicked, he blurted out, “I kissed Elektra,” just as Claire looked straight at him and said, “Elektra kissed me.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, while Matt wondered if he had misheard. He never misheard. But how — why — would Elektra do such a thing?

The shock was followed by a mental image that nearly gave Matt a full-blown cockstand in a matter of seconds: Elektra and Claire entwined, tongues dueling, Claire’s head tilting back as Elektra licked her way down her throat to her bared breasts… oh shit.

“Matt,” Claire said after the silence went on a little too long.

“She did what?” he managed.

“Last night. I was drunk. Elektra came over to ask me to… back off even further, I guess, to let you go. She said you were miserable and you didn’t know what to do, and I should just end it. I said no, and then… I don’t know. We were just talking, about you of course, and she… she kissed me.” Matt could sense Claire’s body flushing as she said the words. From embarrassment, or shame, or something else? Her heartbeat was elevated.

“What kind of kiss?” he asked. Claire’s body reacted immediately, the smell of her arousal — so familiar, so sweet — hitting him almost at once. He didn’t even need her to answer his question now: this hadn’t been a peck on the cheek. Elektra had truly kissed Claire, and Claire had liked it.

“Uh, what kind of kiss did you give her?” Claire asked, turning the tables on him. He deserved that. After all, Claire had not said she’d kissed Elektra back, whereas he had been the initiator.

“The kind you give someone you’re in love with but you also hate a little,” Matt admitted.

“Like this?” Claire grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward her. Beneath the breath mint her mouth still tasted of old wine and sleep and decay but Matt did not mind; he wanted to claim her, imprint himself on her, uncover every hidden shred of darkness in her light. She bit his lower lip, hard, and they broke apart an inch, both panting a little.

“Did you kiss her back?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Matt kissed Claire again, sliding one hand in her hair to hold her in place as he ransacked her mouth, searching for any remnant of Elektra. He pushed her back, moving over her as he kissed her, one hand cupping her breast through her worn t-shirt, flicking her nipple, before sliding lower to the curve of her hip. She kissed him back, arched her hips up seeking his. He wondered if her body had moved toward Elektra when they kissed, what their hands had been doing. When he finally lowered his weight onto her though, she stopped, pulled her head back.

“Matt, what are we doing?” she whispered. She pushed him gently and he rolled off, hating himself again. He was still thinking of Elektra, even if it was now with Claire. Was that why Elektra had done it? To get into his head even further, make everything about her?

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“This is not fair to any of us,” Claire said to the ceiling.

“’Any’ of us?” Matt repeated, surprised she didn’t say “either.”

“Elektra is part of this too,” Claire said, “whether I like it or not. We can’t just use her to fuel our sexual fantasies and pretend she’s not a person with feelings.”

“Is she though?” Matt asked bitterly. He told Claire then what Elektra had confessed to him: the lies behind their relationship right from the beginning, the murders, how she had forced him to forgive her.

“But you did, didn’t you?” Claire asked. “Forgive her?”

“I said I did.” Matt took a deep breath and thought about Elektra in his bed, open and vulnerable, about the need in her voice for a fresh start, a new beginning, and how often he himself had felt that need. He left the air out of his lungs and admitted, “I did. I did forgive her. I do forgive her.”

“She hasn’t forgive herself, I don’t think,” Claire said. “If that helps.”

“Helps?” Matt asked, turning on his side to be closer to Claire. “Are you trying to help her?”

Claire gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “I don’t know. I think I might be. That’s crazy, right? I’m… it’s not because I don’t want you to choose me. I do. When I thought I might actually have lost you, I… it wasn’t…” Matt felt something in his chest compress at the anguish in her voice and reached over to take her hand. “I love you, Matt. But I feel some… sympathy for her? Or something.”

“You sure it’s not just the kiss?” he asked. “She’s pretty good at that.”

Claire laughed. “Maybe. I mean, she’s definitely hot. And even though it’s all a little blurry, it was a good kiss, I think.” Her voice grew more serious. “But I don’t think it’s just that. Maybe it’s that she loves you too. Maybe she and I are the only people who can really understand what that’s like.”

“So, in summation, I am in love with two women, one of whom is generally very well-balanced but has gone perhaps slightly crazy — and I mean that in the legal sense, wherein she may not be acting in her own self-interest — right at this moment, and the other of whom is a hopefully-former assassin who may or may not be playing us both but who appears to be trying to make things right; I have spent the past week trying to decide between them but feel like I will die if I give up either one; and meanwhile there’s some kind of unexplored sympathy, or empathy, between the two women which somehow resulted in them kissing, and liking it, which I find to be incredibly hot by the way, if I didn’t mention that; and also there are ninjas.”

“That seems to about sum it up,” Claire agreed.

“So what will the jury decide?” Matt asked.

“I don’t think there is a jury.”

“A bench trial, I see. What will the judge decide?”

“Who’s the judge?” Claire asked.

“Maybe this would play better in arbitration,” he mused.

“Shut up, Matt. This is not a courtroom, and no one is going to tell you what to do.”

“A plea deal then,” he said, leaning over and kissing her. “I can work with that. I have an idea.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A, uh, compromise is reached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, it was a long time coming but here is what I think you have all been waiting for. There's a little bit more talking, and then a lot of not talking very much. In case additional warning is needed: explicit F/F/M sex in this chapter. Hope you enjoy!

“I can’t believe you are pulling me into this,” Foggy complained, again. They were standing in Matt’s kitchen, Matt preparing for the most difficult negotiation of his life, Foggy preparing to get the hell out of dodge.

“You said you wanted me to tell you things,” Matt reminded him.

“Yeah, tell me. Like, after the fact. I don’t want to be put in a position for Elektra to want to kill me.”

“It won’t be like that,” Matt assured him. “Everyone has agreed to the rules. We have to come to a consensus solution, and all you have to do is certify the plea.”

“How did you get two women to want you?” Foggy asked in a serious tone of voice. “Much less agree to something this insane? I really want to know. I _have_ to know.”

There was a knock at the door — probably Claire, since Elektra was not big on knocking. Foggy sighed. “I’ll get it on my way out,” he said. He picked up his bag and headed for the door.

“I’ll call you when we’re ready to present the plea,” Matt reminded him.

“I know, I know,” Foggy said, throwing up his middle finger. Matt smiled, wondering if Foggy had meant the gesture to be “seen” or if he’d forgotten Matt wasn't all that blind.

“Oh, hey Foggy,” Claire said at the door. Foggy said hello and goodbye and the door closed behind him. Claire edged into the room, her body language clearly conveying nerves.

“Thanks for coming,” Matt said.

“When I said I would fight for what we have, I hope you know I didn’t mean literally fight.”

“It’s not a fight, it’s a negotiation,” Matt said. “We all want incompatible things. There has to be some middle ground where we each get something and maybe each give something up. I just want us all to be in the same room figuring out what that is. That’s all this is.”

“And Foggy?” Claire asked. She had come close enough for him to reach out and touch. He wanted to, wanted to gather her in against his body, inhale her warmth and the smell of her hair. But Elektra could come in any moment, and it would start things off on the wrong foot for her to see that.

“Foggy is there to be a reality check if it turns out none of us are acting in our own self-interest.” Matt knew that it was a crazy idea, but he was feeling crazy, had been for days, torturing himself (and, he suspected, both Elektra and Claire) going back and forth between them. And no one else had offered any viable solutions so far. “Plus I’m trying to take your advice, be more… open.”

“What a boring piece of advice,” Elektra commented from the loft. She had let herself inside. She began to descend toward them, and Matt felt a flare of panic. He had really asked them both here, to the same room, to discuss their romantic situation. He _was_ insane.

“Is ‘boring’ your worst insult?” Claire asked.

“Oh darling, not even _close_ ,” Elektra laughed.

“You do hate to be bored though,” Matt reminded her.

“True. But I also hate a number of other things.”

There was a long silence during which both Elektra and Claire’s heartbeats sped up. They must be exchanging glares, Matt decided. “Should we have a drink?” he asked, trying to break the tension a little.

“No,” Claire and Elektra said simultaneously. Another silence, and then Elektra made a small gesture with her hand and Claire said, “We should all have our wits about us, I think.”

“At least for a little while,” Elektra agreed. “I reserve the right to change my mind.”

“We all have the right to change our minds,” Matt said clearly, “about any of this. No one is obligated to be here or do anything. Agreed?”

“Yes.”

“Agreed.”

 

There were so many kinds of silence. Elektra had taken her seat in the corner of the couch and resolved not to speak, but she had not expected Matthew and Claire to do the same. Matthew had spoken at first, laying out the contours of their little problem, as if they had not all known, but then he had paused, waiting for someone else to give him something, to help him, and no one did. (Elektra was not here to help him. She was here to watch and to protect her claim.) This silence stretched between the three of them like a dead body, heavy and useless and requiring attention.

“Okay, I’ll say it,” Claire said into the quiet. “We had a good thing before Elektra came. I love you Matt and I think you love me. Elektra has admitted that she is bad for you, that she is bad for herself. She should take herself back to wherever she came from, and let us get on with our lives.”

Both of them were watching Matthew. He flinched when Claire said that Elektra should leave, just a little, but enough that Elektra knew he could never go back to how it had been before.

Claire must have seen it too. “No, I can see that’s not what you want,” she said. “But I had to say it, didn’t I?”

“I’m sorry, Claire,” Matt said.

She shook her head. “We’re not here for apologies. I said what I want. Now it’s your turn. Or her turn.” She turned to look at Elektra, unflinching. Elektra caught her gaze and held it. Such a strong face, Claire had, all angles. Elektra wanted to run her fingers over all of them as if she was Matthew learning with his hands. Perhaps that was why Matthew loved her; she had a face a blind man could appreciate, almost as well as a sighted woman could. “What do you want Elektra?”

“Haven’t I made that clear?”

“Not particularly.”

Elektra still held Claire’s eyes, or perhaps Claire held hers. She couldn’t tell what she wanted because unlike her rival, Elektra had never known. Or if she had known, she had never been willing to admit to herself, much less anyone else. Did she want Matthew? Yes, of course. But how? She had no vision of the life they would have together. Would she move to New York and be a good little girl for him? Would she fight crime at his side? How long until Stick found her and punished her? No time at all, she supposed. “I don’t want to be alone anymore,” she heard herself say, and it was true, so true, but her voice sounded strange when she said it.

Matthew flinched again, but this time toward her, a little, as if he longed to touch her. She longed to be touched. But Claire still held her with her eyes, so clear and calm, and Elektra could not move.

“What would make you feel not alone?” Claire asked, her voice unexpectedly gentle.

She thought of sitting on Claire’s couch with a glass of terrible wine and talking, reaching out to touch Claire’s face, the warmth of her mouth yielding. She thought of Matthew’s scars, here on this couch, of running through the night with him both tethered and free. But she could not put words to either of those memories, to any of the rush of feelings that went with them. “Not being alone,” she snapped instead, as if she couldn’t understand Claire’s question, as if Claire was the idiot and not her.

“Elektra,” Matthew said, and she looked over at him, finally breaking the spell of Claire’s eyes on her. He was not looking back at her, of course, but his face was turned in her direction, his expression hungry and infinitely compassionate somehow in one. “You’re not alone. And you don’t have to be.”

She shook her head. “We are all alone, Matthew. Look at us — sitting in our corners trying to be _civilized_. There is nothing civilized about this. You want to fuck me, you love her, she loves you, she hates me, I, I, I. I want. I want things I can’t have. There is nothing civilized about any of this, and nothing shared.”

“I don’t hate you,” Claire said, and Elektra felt her heart strangely skip a beat. “I probably should, but I don't.”

“And I don’t just want to fuck you,” Matthew said. “It’s a lot more than that. You know that.” Now her heart skipped two beats.

She wished Matthew could not hear her heartbeat.

“What do you want that you can’t have?” Matthew asked.

He knew. Elektra felt a flutter of panic. He could read her like a book, he understood her, he always had, with the exception of a few pages she’d written in invisible ink. He knew.

“What you have,” she said, looking at Claire and then back at Matthew, “both of you.”

“What if you could have it?” Claire asked, catching her eyes again. There was a different kind of silence now, as Elektra felt as if her heart had stopped beating altogether. Surely Claire was not saying what Elektra thought she was saying? But Claire was looking directly at her, unafraid, open.

“Claire,” Matthew said, and Claire broke the look to turn to Matthew and smile, a disbelieving, wonder of a smile.

“Remember how we talked about me not looking out for my own self-interest right now?” she said.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Can’t you tell?” she shot back, but gently.

Their faces both turned to Elektra. “If this means what I think it means, can we skip past the rest of the talking and just be fucking now?” she asked. She closed her eyes against the shocked looks, the denial.

Claire laughed, a low chuckle that made Elektra instantaneously wet. Her eyes popped open again. “I reserve the right to talk more after,” she said, “but yeah, I’m okay with that.”

Matthew didn’t bother responding out loud. Elektra had seen him dodge a bullet but she did not think she had ever seen him move faster than he did at that moment, somehow tugging Claire and Elektra both out of their seats before the word ‘okay’ left Claire’s mouth. Elektra crashed into Claire, hips and breasts and lips and teeth, and Matthew’s hand fisting her hair and his mouth at her throat, two mouths one hard, one soft, and Elektra’s, desperate but there was no need to be, they were there, they were touching her at last.

 

Claire had dated and hooked up with women before, but it had been a while. A while too, since she’d been with anyone but Matt. The novelty alone would have made her unbearably turned on, but somehow this went so far beyond that. Elektra was perfect; the curve of her ass beneath her fitted dress, the taste of her skin, the lush ferocity of her mouth. For a moment Claire and Matt were both focused on Elektra, trading her mouth back and forth, learning the curve of her throat, the size of her earlobe, unbuttoning every one of a thousand buttons marching down the back of her dress. But when Matt pushed the dress off her and dropped it to the floor, revealing Elektra’s small, high breasts with their hardened café-au-lait nipples, her muscled abdomen and black lace thong and legs that went on for miles, then Elektra seemed to feel it was the moment for her to take charge.

“Your first orgasm tonight is _mine_ ,” she said fiercely, gripping Claire’s hair, and then she kissed her, hard. Elektra’s mouth was smaller than Matt’s but fleshier, her lips so full and soft Claire wanted to bite them, suck on them, but Elektra would just bit her back, harder. She shoved Claire down into an armchair and began tugging on her jeans, forcing Claire to thrust her hips upward to wiggle out of her pants and underwear. The look in Elektra’s eyes made Claire feel like she was already being fucked, like Elektra knew everything inside of her.

“Hold her,” Elektra said, and Claire realized she was talking to Matt. Matt whose shirt had been discarded, his muscles a match for Elektra’s, whose look matched Elektra’s too: fierce and wanting. He stood behind the chair and grabbed Claire’s hands above her head. Elektra shoved her knees wide and pulled Claire to the edge of the chair, so she was awkwardly angled, open, exposed.

Then Elektra’s mouth was on her, licking upwards through her folds, her tongue tracing the outlines of her labia before flickering over her clit and making her jump. Matt’s iron grip of her hands was control and care too. Claire found herself gripping him back, her hands turning into claws as Elektra teased and tortured her. She could feel Matt grinding himself against the back of the chair and she was suddenly desperate to taste him. She turned her head, looking for the front of his jeans and he hastily undid the button and pushed his briefs down just enough to release his hard cock to the air.

“Suck him,” Elektra said and Claire gasped, “suck _me_ ,” and Elektra laughed and Matt shoved his cock into her mouth, still holding her hands though it was unclear now who was holding who. She felt him hit the back of her throat as Elektra fastened her lips around Claire’s clit and somehow they were all moving in rhythm, Matt thrusting into Claire’s mouth in time to Elektra’s mouth pulling on Claire’s clit and she felt like her whole body was convulsing in the same rhythm, it was too much, it was not enough. She tried to keep her eyes open, looked up to see Matt but of course he was not in his eyes, so she looked down and Elektra was, Elektra was looking up at her watching Claire’s face for every reaction as she suckled and licked and Matt was with her, their hands locked together, he was moaning as she swallowed around him, drew him deeper, her eyes tearing, but Elektra was with her too, her eyes dark and demanding and present.

Elektra thrust three fingers up into Claire, hitting her g-spot, and that was enough to send her over the edge, shaking and crying, as Elektra ground into her, never relenting, and Matt’s fingers crushed hers or maybe she crushed his, and he was making soothing noises and his dick was heavy against her face as she shook.

Finally Elektra eased up and Claire stopped shaking and took a breath, and Matt let go, but only to put his hands in her hair. Claire reached down to Elektra and grabbed her arm, pulled her up close. Elektra was dark and serious and beautiful, her lips glistening with Claire’s cum, some part of her afraid of what happened now. Claire kissed her, deeply, tasting them both, and stroked Elektra’s breasts and the side of her stomach, her hip. When the kiss ended, Claire tilted her head up to Matt and said, “Fuck her.”

 

They relocated to the bedroom and lost the rest of their clothes, even Elektra’s fuck-me heels discarded by the door. Claire stretched out on the bed, and Matt could feel every inch of her vibrating with post-orgasm bliss. He and Elektra were still strung taut, aching. She hesitated for a moment, uncharacteristically, by the bed, but he could not pause to think about how they should do this or what it meant. Without thought or intention he grabbed her by the hips and bore her back, thrust inside of her without preamble or permission. Ten years it had been. Ten years waiting for this.

She was still hot enough to burn, tight and slick and overpowering. He was as unaware as he could ever be of his surroundings, of even the arrangement of their bodies. All that mattered was to be inside of her as deep as he could go. His hips strained up, screwing deeper and deeper into her and she gasped, her hands framing his face, her nails sharp on his skin, and held there, simply feeling it.

Elektra dragged his mouth to hers and he thrust his tongue into her, tasting the roof of her mouth and her tongue and the sweetness of Claire’s juices still lingering on her lips. Claire. She was nearby, watching them intently. As if his thought called her — or maybe he said her name — she moved closer, ran a hand over Elektra’s hip and gripped her thigh, lifting it up, guiding Elektra’s calf to his shoulder. He lifted her other leg and the new angle of Elektra’s hips let him slide just that tiny bit deeper. He was fully engulfed, his balls pressed up against her flesh, the head of his cock pressing up against the end of her.  

“Now fuck her,” Claire said, and he obeyed, pulling back so that he could thrust again, and again, and again, and again.

Elektra moaned his name and their hands gripped, and he could see feel Claire’s touch on the other side, her hand on his back, his hip, sliding past him to flick Elektra’s nipple making her jolt and tighten on his cock even more. Claire and Elektra kissed, Claire slid her mouth across Elektra’s throat and bit her ear, and Matt could feel everything, could feel Elektra open and close and cling to him on each thrust and feel her orgasm approaching each time he pounded into her, hitting her g-spot and skating against her clit. It wasn’t enough though. He wanted her to lose control completely and she was still clinging to it, still thrusting up against him and directing Claire’s mouth against her skin.

“Claire,” he said, and Claire knew. She slid her hand between them and found Elektra’s clit, two fingers pressing down hard each time he thrust forward. Elektra came, grasping at him. He lowered her legs, pressing them against her and opening her cunt to him even more as she convulsed around him, the most incredible feeling he had ever experienced, the most beautiful thing he had ever not seen.

When she quieted he pulled out and turned her onto her side, leaning down to lick the sweat and tears from her face. “I love you,” he said.

“I have always loved you,” Elektra said back, lifting her face to his. Claire drew him down between her and Elektra, the big spoon and little spoon at the same time, and he slipped back inside Elektra for a few thrusts, feeling the quivering aftershocks of her orgasm still, wanting to hold her forever but also wanting to fucking come.

“Now fuck _her_ ,” Elektra said, and Matt could not help but smile. He kissed Elektra’s shoulder where it met her neck and turned onto his other side, to Claire. She kissed him, softly, and he opened her legs with one thigh and then found her cunt. She still astonished him with how good she felt, how right.

“I’m not going to last much longer,” he admitted, already shaking a little.

Claire chuckled. “You’re been a champ already,” she said, “it’s okay.” She sighed a little as he thrust his hips up, filling her. Elektra turned on her other side, pressed her body against Matt’s, every hot sticky inch of her.

“We’ll do it together,” Elektra murmured in his ear. Her hips found his, his thigh cradling his thigh and they did fuck Claire together, while Claire moaned softly and fucked them back.

It might have been ten seconds or ten minutes, Matt didn’t know, he was so lost in the hot sweetness of it, in Claire’s cunt and her mouth and Elektra’s body commanding his and her voice in his ear whispering, “Come inside her Matthew, she wants it, she wants you to fill her so full that she’ll be leaking for days, I’ll suck it out of her because I want it too, and because I can’t resist her weeping cunt, would you like to see that, would you like to see me lick your spunk out of Claire.” His hips sped up almost involuntarily until he was pounding into Claire, Elektra’s body an anchor, and then it was too much, he couldn’t hold on. He thrust upward, spurting, once, twice, heard his own voice cry out, and Claire’s arms come around him, or Elektra’s, or both, they were one being the three of them, he was lost, and he was found forever.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio has the morning after talk.

Claire startled awake to the sound of Foggy’s voice saying, “Pick up the phone Matt. Pick up the phone Matt. Pick up the phone Matt.” On one side of her Matt was reaching to pick up (or maybe shut up) the phone. “Hey Foggy,” he said. With one eye cracked open she could see him rubbing the heel of his hand over his face. His other hand held the phone. So which hand was her fingers holding? Her hand twitched. In response the arm extended across her body twitched, tightened, and the body behind her took a deep breath and let it out. The female body behind her. Elektra.

“We’re still working it out,” Matt said into the phone. “We took a break to sleep.” Pause. Claire could hear Foggy’s voice over the phone but not make out the exact words. “Yes, sleep.” Pause. “I promise I will tell you everything… later. I gotta go now, Foggy. Yeah, I’ll call you later. Okay. Bye.”

He hung up and dropped the phone onto the mattress beside him. Claire blinked, thinking about going back to sleep, thinking about not. He rolled back onto his side and inched closer to her. One of Elektra’s legs was slung over Claire’s calf. Elektra was still asleep, her weight heavy, her breathing regular against Claire’s back.

“You okay?” Matt asked in a hushed voice.

“Don’t wake her,” Claire whispered back.

“She’s a deep sleeper,” Matt assured her. “Always has been.”

Claire drew in a deep breath, leaned her face forward to find Matt’s for a light kiss, since she couldn’t move either of her arms to touch him. “I’m good. You?”

“I think I’m dreaming,” he admitted.

“This feels pretty real to me,” Claire said. “In fact, I kind of have to pee.” He laughed and helped her extricate herself. Elektra slept through the entire operation, though when given an opportunity, she did twine herself around Matt instead. Claire watched her do it and did not feel a single pang. As she peed, she considered whether she should: feel jealousy, feel anger, feel sadness. It seemed like those would be normal feelings to have. But Matt hadn’t left her. He loved her. And she… she could understand the concept of loving two people at the same time. That didn’t seem crazy to her. She could even imagine that she might be a little but in love with Elektra, for being brave and fierce and vulnerable, for being brilliant and terrifying and unapologetic and yet wanting to be forgiven. When Elektra had said to them last night that she wanted what they, Matt and Claire, had, something had clicked inside of Claire’s head, an aha moment. It was so simple really. Nothing in the clear light of day had so far changed her mind.

She washed her hands and brushed her teeth and went back out. Matt smiled when she came into the room, sweet and smug somehow both at the same time. Claire got one of his t-shirts out of his dresser and pulled it on, for warmth more than self-consciousness about being naked. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her knees inside the shirt, her lips twisting to match Matt’s smile as she ran a finger down Elektra’s exposed back. Elektra felt so good to touch, a whole world of luxury that Claire had never even dreamt of. But she wasn’t soft, or weak. She wore her silk and leather and perfect hair like armor in her fight against the whole world.

“Don’t want to go back to sleep?” Matt asked in a hushed voice.

“I don’t think I can,” Claire said. Her sleep schedule was screwy now because of all the night shifts, when she got the chance for a normal night of sleep it rarely took. Not that this was a normal night of sleep. They’d fucked, slept, fucked again, slept some more. She had no idea what time it was or how much sleep they’d ended up getting.

“Coffee?”

“God, yes,” Elektra said, surprising Claire who had thought she was fast asleep. She hadn’t moved or lifted her head, but she released Matt when he made to get up. One of Elektra’s hands snaked out and grabbed Claire’s ankle. “You stay.”

“Bossy,” Claire remarked, but obediently slipped onto her side, stroking Elektra’s hip and planting a kiss against her neck.

Matt pulled on sweatpants. “Breakfast in bed, coming up,” he said, disappearing into the living room.

“Ugh, I forgot he was so chipper in the morning,” Elektra complained, her face mostly buried in a pillow.

Claire chuckled and dropped another kiss onto her shoulder. “I think we gave him reason to be,” Claire reminded her.

Elektra shifted slightly, grinding her ass back into Claire as her legs stretched. “Mmm. I suppose we did.”

Claire slid an arm around Elektra’s hips, anchoring them back against her own before the other woman could turn back into her stomach. She parted Elektra’s thighs with her knee and slipped her fingers between them. Elektra was slippery, yielding, and silent at first as Claire made a leisurely exploration of her folds. Then Claire slipped three fingers inside Elektra and pulled up sharply, shifting and pinning Elektra’s whole body and Elektra gasped. Claire’s thumb found her clit, petting it slowly, gently, sweetly. “That’s it,” Claire crooned. “Just let me fuck you.” She wished she had her dildo with her, even a strap on, so she could fuck Elektra into the mattress. She imagined doing it the way Matt had fucked her, that morning he came from seeing Elektra. But Claire didn’t have a cock, so she used her fingers, gently but inexorably pushing Elektra higher and higher until she writhed and Claire had to bite her neck to hold her in place, and she came apart around Claire’s hand.

“Beautiful,” Matt said from the doorway. He had three cups of coffee and a giant hard-on clearly visible through his sweat pants.

“Well I suppose if one has to wake up,” Elektra said, stretching and sitting up. Claire’s fingers slipped out of her, her leg lifted to allow Elektra free movement. “Now give me that damned coffee.”

 

The first moment Elektra woke up she was certain that it had been a dream and that she was dreaming still. The second moment, when she knew she was awake, she was certain it had been a mistake — or at least, they would surely think so. But now, sitting up in Matthew’s bed drinking coffee with them, still wet and replete from Claire’s unsolicited solicitude… well now she had to admit that she might have been wrong. Maybe, just maybe, this was real.

“I think we might need to have the rest of that talk now,” Claire said. “Assuming everyone has had enough coffee for that?” She looked at Elektra, inquiringly. Elektra felt plenty awake by now, but she wondered if she could use the morning as an excuse to put off this talk further.

“I’ll manage,” she said finally. She glanced at Claire and then they both turned to look at Matt. He held out his hands in a gesture almost of conciliation. He looked like a little boy who thought his favorite toy was about to be taken away.

“I’ll say this just so it’s clear, not because I want to pressure either of you into anything you don’t want or because I don’t trust you to speak for yourselves. I love you both. Last night was incredible, and if there is some way of that continuing… of all of us…” He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “But it’s important to me that you both are comfortable and happy. I don’t want you to do this for me, because I can’t make up my mind.”

Elektra made a disbelieving noise in her throat at the same time Claire made a little humming sound of disapproval. “As if we would,” Elektra said disdainfully, not pausing to question the fact that she had said ‘we’ as if she and Claire were a thing. “You are not _that_ special, Matthew.”

His lips quirked in a way that made her want to touch him. “You’re right, I’m not.”

“Well, you both know I have no trouble saying what I think,” Claire pointed out. “So here it is: I would like to try to make this, the three of us, work. I think the attraction clearly goes in all directions, and none of us are ready to give up or be given up on, so that leaves one clear solution which is just not to. Just to try, all of us together. But there are some issues with that. I have some concerns.”

Elektra felt her heart leap at Claire’s initial words and then slow at the end. “What concerns?” she forced herself to ask, keeping her voice nonchalant.

“Well… how is this going to work?” Claire addressed the first question to them both but then turned to look Elektra in the eyes. “Do you even live in New York? Are you going to move here? Will the two of you be off fighting ninjas every night? Do I have to worry about both of you all the time? Are you going to stop killing people?”

Ah, those sorts of questions. Did that mean that the basic principle — that they all three should be together — had just been accepted? Just like that?

“If I can answer these questions, we’ll all be together?” Elektra asked, just to be sure.

“Is that what you want?” Matthew asked.

Elektra didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I want that.”

He smiled, brilliant as the sun. She found herself smiling back, like an idiot.

After a moment she recollected herself and turned back to Claire. “I can’t answer all those questions right now. I don’t know. I have promised I won’t kill anymore, and I intend to honor that as best as I can.”

“As best you can?” Matthew repeated.

“If I am protecting you, or Claire, I can’t make any promises,” Elektra said. There was a moment of silence and then Matthew nodded, shortly. She continued, “As long as I am here, and well, I will fight with Matthew. He will be safer with me than he was without me, so I don’t think you should worry more, though I can’t help it if you do.”

Claire huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh, or something worse.

“As long as you are here?” Matthew asked.

Elektra hesitated then, looked down at her hands, the coffee cup, her half-covered thighs. She was wearing one of Matthew’s button-up shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and nothing else. She could still feel the wound on her abdomen, the flesh stitching itself into a scar. “I can’t stay forever. Not now. I have to go back to Stick and explain what happened. If I don’t finish that part of my life, I can’t start this one. He will not just let me go so easily.”

She chanced a look up at Matthew’s face. It was bleak, devastated, angry. “You are going to run away again? After all this?”

“Not for ten years,” Elektra said. “And I won’t disappear. It might be a week, or a few months. I can’t make promises about that. But I promise I will come back. And I don’t have to go yet. We have time to see how this works, with all of us, and to deal with the Yakuza.”

“You have to come back,” Matthew said, fiercely. He took the almost-empty coffee cup from her hand and put it on the bedside table. Then he slid a hand into her hair and kissed her. It was not a sweet kiss, no tender nibbles or stroking of tongues. He swallowed her whole, lips and teeth and tongue. When he let her go she was shaking with desire and fear. What if Stick would not let her go? No, she would make him. She would choose.

“I will,” she promised.

“I am glad you will be there to watch his back,” Claire said into the silence that followed.

“And I am glad you will be here with him when I cannot be,” Elektra replied, meeting the other woman’s eyes. She had worried about what she would do if she succeeded in capturing Matthew, how she would tell Stick, but part of her had never believed it would really happen and so had not planned for the next stage. Now it would be well; Matthew would have Claire so he need not be alone while Elektra sorted out the mess of her past. She felt a pang, wondering if they would want her when she returned, but she had made them want her now, hadn’t she? She could do it again if she must.

“So one-on-one time is allowed?” Matthew asked.

Elektra looked at Claire, who nodded, before she said, “Yes. But for any of us, including me and Claire.”

Matthew had strange expression on his face as he said, “Of course.”

“Is that okay with you?” Claire asked, sensing something unsaid.

He rubbed a hand over his face and smiled. “Yes. Sorry. I think I will wish I could be there, but I’ll survive. I want you two to have your own relationship. Otherwise it’s unbalanced.”

Claire laughed. “Look at us, so healthy sounding. I didn’t know we had it in us.”

“And yet I think Foggy is going to declare us all non compos mentis,” Matthew warned.

Ah yes, his silly rules. What had he thought would happen when he made that plan? Could he have possibly imagined this? Could Elektra? She felt strange, so light, and she thought it might be happiness. Hiding her smile, Elektra arched a warning brow. “Let him try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we are getting close to the end -- probably one or two more chapters to go. 
> 
> This fic got so much longer than I planned it to be when I started that I think I am not going to end up dealing with the Yakuza or Punisher plots much more (if at all). It just turned out to be a romance and all that other stuff felt boring/extraneous to me. Sorry/not sorry.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end and a beginning for Matt, Claire, and Elektra. Plus bathtub sex!

Matt and Elektra were making out on the roof when Claire emerged for her break. She tried to stifle a laugh, but Matt heard anyway, pulled away. He shot her a dopey grin. “We brought you coffee.”

“Matthew brought you coffee,” Elektra corrected him. “I told him that cocaine would be far more effective, but he told me you wouldn’t take it.” She gave a little shrug of incomprehension as Claire shook her head, a smile twitching over her lips. She picked up the coffee from where Matt had put it down.

“Were you two waiting long?” Claire asked pointedly.

Matt had the grace to look slightly chagrined; Elektra, of course, did not. “A few minutes,” he said, at the same time Elektra said, “I texted you.”

“I don’t check my phone while I’m working,” Claire reminded her. She took a sip of coffee, sighing happily at the bitter warmth, and then leaned over to kiss Elektra hello. Elektra tried to slip her the tongue and Claire leaned back, shaking her head again. “I’m working.”

“So are we,” Elektra pouted.

“Really?” Claire arched a brow but turned her face to receive Matt’s hello kiss. “Hi babe. Thanks for the coffee.”

“In fact, we are on our way to a pretty big fight,” Matt said.

“The Yakuza?”

“I think this is going to be it,” Matt said. “Just wanted you to know.”

Claire felt a shiver of fear pass through her despite the hot beverage she was drinking. She glanced at Elektra, whose outfit had been augmented but not entirely replaced with armor from Matt’s armor guy. She was entirely healed from the sword wound now, but Claire still worried. She worried about them both. She hated being the one left behind. “Be careful,” she said to them both.

“Check your damn cell phone,” Elektra said. She caught Claire’s wrist and drew her closer for a real kiss, tongue and all, and this time Claire did not resist. Matt sunk a hand into Claire’s hair and tipped her head back so that he could join, his mouth hot and sure and tasting slightly of Elektra.

“We’ll be careful,” he said when the three of them broke apart. Claire nodded, kissed Elektra’s fingers, squeezed Matt’s hand, and let them go.

 

When she walked out of work at six the next morning, there was a town car waiting for her. “Claire Temple?” the driver asked. “Your presence has been requested.”

Her phone buzzed. _Get in the car_. She just wanted to go home to sleep, but she was too tired to argue, so she got in the car. There was fresh coffee and glass bottles of sparking water inside, both of which Claire ignored in favor of closing her eyes while they drove. The driver dropped her off at a fancy apartment building where the doorman escorted her to the elevator and swiped her up to the penthouse. Claire leaned against the corner of the elevator, eyes closed, refusing to be impressed by the décor.

The elevator opened directly into the penthouse, which looked like a movie set. Claire had been here before, but she had yet to get used to casually hanging out in a room where each item of furniture — and probably each goddamn knick-knack — cost more than her entire monthly rent.

“We’re in here,” Matt’s voice called and Claire wearily made her way to the bedroom, desperately hoping that no one needed any medical care. He didn’t _sound_ hurt or frantic, just a little muffled.

Matt and Elektra were draped across Elektra’s huge bed at strange angles, as if they had been too tired to make it to the head of the bed or pull back the sheets. Matt had dumped his costume on the ground at the foot of the bed. Elektra had taken off her shirt but failed to wriggle out of her pants. Claire’s expert eyes noted several burgeoning bruises, but no blood. The light was off but the window curtains were open so it was still pretty bright.

“You’re okay,” she said.

“Can you please get in this goddamn bed so we can go to sleep?” Elektra asked. “And close the fucking curtains.”

Elektra had blackout curtains that closed with the push of a button. Claire pushed the button. She toed off her shoes, and dropped her scrubs on top of them, and unhooked her bra with a happy sigh. They were okay. And they wanted to sleep. With her. They had been waiting for her.

“I love you too,” Claire said, and climbed into the bed between them.

 

Claire’s favorite part of Elektra’s apartment was the giant bathtub in her master bedroom. As a nurse, Claire approved of her bruised and battered patients taking long soaks in Epsom salts. As a girlfriend, she approved of a bathtub that could fit all three of them at once.

“Fuuuck yes,” Claire sighed, easing herself into the bath and onto Matt’s cock at the same time. He cupped his hands around her breasts, pinching her nipples as he encouraged her to lie back against his chest. She felt so full and also so relaxed, perfectly content to just float in a haze of heat of pleasure as Matt’s hands skirted over her body, subtly shifting her body so he could move even deeper.

Elektra had showered and dressed while they still slept and gone to a meeting about her actual business interests. She left a note saying she’d be back soon and they should enjoy themselves while she was gone.

Having got her where he wanted her, Matt wrapped an arm around Claire’s torso and anchored her back against him while he began very lazily fucking her. She closed her eyes, needing only the feel of the water and his slick skin and his dick inside her and the sound of his breath by her neck. Visual stimuli was unnecessary. She wondered if Matt felt that way or if he missed it, if he wished he could turn off his extra perception sometimes just to concentrate on a single feeling. He withdrew, slowly, and she sighed, and then just as slowly he came back into her, scraping every nerve along the way.

She tilted her head back into his shoulder, letting her hair get wet, and turned her face to scrape along his stubbled jaw.

“Did you tell Foggy why you weren’t going in to work today?” Claire asked only a little breathily.

“You mean so I could spend the day in the tub fucking you? No, I didn’t mention it.”

She pinched his thigh with her free hand, which he then captured as well. “About the fight,” she said, “did you tell him you would be recovering?”

“Yeah, I gave him the outline. Promised I’d be less distracted after today, focus on the trial.” He followed his words with a low moan of contentment which expressed about how Claire was feeling too.

“And he was cool with it?” Claire’s voice was getting huskier as Matt’s movements sped up ever-so-slightly.

“He… he said good job, actually.” Matt sounded surprised and Claire found herself smiling. Foggy would come around, he just needed a chance to know both sides of Matt. After having to come clean and explain his romantic relationship, Matt had seemed to be getting better at talking about the rest of his life recently, acknowledging that it was one life, not two.

“Did he send me congratulations as well?” Elektra asked from the bathroom doorway. She was dressed in one of her black sheathe dresses, extremely high heels, red lipstick. Claire felt herself tighten around Matt involuntarily at the sight, and Matt made a noise and tightened his grip around her hips, holding her close to him as she pulsed around his cock.

“He said it was probably all your doing,” Matt responded, “and I told him that was true.”

Elektra’s dark eyes narrowed a little on their bodies. Claire wondered if Foggy really said that. Foggy was still getting used to Elektra, both in concept and reality. Then again, he would never miss an opportunity to needle Matt.

“How did your meeting go?” Claire asked.

Elektra smiled, a predatory flash of red lips and white teeth. “Roxxon is retrenching from U.S. markets,” she said. “I do believe we have triumphed.”

“Come here,” Matt said, pride and hunger in his voice. He thrust up into Claire a little faster now and she gasped, biting her lip and making eyes at Elektra across the room.

“No,” Elektra said.

Claire could feel Matt react to Elektra’s cool defiance. His hands on Claire’s body turned harder, his hips a little more forceful. God, it felt good. Elektra could see it too, and she looked delighted at the change. She sat on the marble countertop, the material of her dress stretching over her thighs as she crossed her legs.

Claire lifted one foot to the edge of the bathtub, spreading her legs so that Elektra could get a better look at Matt’s cock sliding in and out of her cunt. Elektra’s eyes flew to that spot and she shifted a little, not quite as in control as she wanted to be. Matt rewarded Claire’s ingenuity by sliding his hands down to her newly accessible clit and tapping it lightly in time to his thrusts.

“Come here,” he said again, his voice a low growl by Claire’s ear.

“No,” Elektra said. She sat serenely, hands on the counter, only her eyes giving away her interest in the proceedings.

Claire thought maybe she should be some sort of bridge, give Elektra an excuse to bend and join them, but she was enjoying their contest of wills too much to bother. Besides, she was getting the best part of the deal: slightly angry superhero fucking her in a tub of warm water. She was pretty much in heaven.

“Come,” Matt said in Claire’s ear, but this time she thought the command was directed at her: he made full on contact with her clit, rubbing it just the way that always sent her over the edge as he fucked up into her. She did not say no. Waves of pleasure swamped her, and she was only vaguely aware of her foot curling around the porcelain edge of the tub and Elektra’s purr of “good girl” and Matt’s moan as she convulsed around him.

When Claire managed to open her eyes again, she was still floating in a (now somewhat lukewarm) tub of water. Matt was laid out flat on the marble counter being fucked by Elektra, who had managed to ruck her very tight dress high enough up her thighs to make room for him.

“Come here,” Elektra said, noticing Claire’s eyes were open and she was watching them intently. Claire did not say no, again. She climbed out of the tub and walked across the room. They were still struggling, at least a little, Matt trying to flip Elektra and take control, Elektra pinning him down as she rode him. Claire stopped next to Elektra and grabbed her for a deep kiss. Elektra tasted like iced coffee.

“Here,” Elektra said. She helped Claire climb onto the counter top, Matt’s hands reaching too to boost her. Matt and Elektra guided her right leg over his head and Matt brought her dripping — literally, her entire body was dripping wet — cunt down to his mouth.

She was already so sensitive when he licked her she jumped. Elektra’s hands were on her arms. Claire made herself open her eyes. Elektra was right there, her dark eyes on Claire. Claire dipped her gaze down to see Matt’s cock splitting Elektra open, the bunched dress, and then up to Elektra’s red mouth. Claire leaned in and captured Elektra’s mouth again, thrusting her tongue in rhythm with Matt’s tongue in her cunt, his cock inside Elektra, a triangle of possession. Elektra claimed her right back, of course, gripping Claire’s wet hair, her scalp, biting her lips. Claire didn’t know who was setting the pace, who was in control of any of it. Everything was being given and everything was being taken all at the same time.

It didn’t take long for Claire to come again. She was already hypersensitized and Matt was really good at cunnilingus. She bit Elektra’s shoulder and dug her fingers into the other woman’s arms as the top of her head blew off.

Then Elektra came, or maybe Elektra and Matt at the same time, or maybe they were all coming at the same time. Elektra kissed Claire, frantically, and the marble counter shook, and Matt’s hands were back on Elektra’s hips, hard, and he was thrusting up, his neck arched back burying his face in Claire’s cunt which he kept licking after she was shuddering and trying to pull away. Claire managed not to smother him, pulling her leg over his head to slump against the wall, and Elektra collapsed down against Matt’s chest, and Matt murmured something incomprehensible.

A moment later, when she had collected her wits and realized she was wet and sitting on a cold marble surface, Claire suggested, “Hot bath?” Matt chuckled, Elektra groaned, and Claire said, “Epsom salt is great for sore muscles.”

 

Claire had another night shift that evening so at 4:30, Elektra had dinner delivered to her apartment and the three of them ate together even though Claire had told them not to throw their schedules off for her sake.

Before Elektra, Matt had often tried to get Claire to let him eat an early dinner with her, but she’d always put him off. Matt was slightly baffled at Claire’s willingness to bend to Elektra in ways she would not to him, but in a pleasant way. It felt like getting to know a new side of Claire. And it went both ways: Elektra could be kind and even accommodating to Claire in a way she never was with him. What amazed him was their willingness to show these new sides in front of him, to let him witness their relationship with each other as it grew inch by inch. It felt more intimate than anything he had ever experienced before.

“I think it best if I make that trip soon,” Elektra said over dinner, reaching across the table for a dumpling as casually as if she was discussing the weather. Even Matt could not read any tension in her body, which surprised him.

“Not right away,” Claire said.

“It will take a few days to arrange, but soon.”

“Why?” Matt asked. Her could feel the scrape of the word inside his throat, how little it wanted to come out. Don’t go, he wanted to say.

“We have triumphed,” Elektra noted, “for the moment. Something else will come eventually, and I want to be back before that happens. Now is the safest time. Besides, I have a victory now. It puts me in a position of power.”

“But you didn’t beat Stick,” Matt pointed out.

“No, but he will respect what we’ve done here, you and I. It might help.” She shrugged, and Matt could not stop himself from reaching out and touching her hair where it fell over her shoulder, the warm flesh of her arm.

“You don’t have to go,” Claire said firmly. “You’re a grown woman, what power does he have over you? Just stay here with us. If he comes for you, we’ll deal with it then.” Matt could not help a ghost of smile at the thought of Claire "dealing with" Stick. But then he imagined the old man, how much he hated emotional ties, and how willingly he would hurt Claire, and he couldn't sustain the amusement. Elektra was right. Her past must be dealt with if they were all to have a future together.

Elektra shook her head, as Matt knew she would. He thought back to their first meetings, to Claire so clearly wishing Elektra had never entered their lives. Now she was practically pleading with her to stay. He felt cold and warm at the same time; happy and terrified.

“It’s complicated,” Elektra said. For once her voice lost its arch tone and she spoke in deadly earnest: “I must do this, or look over my shoulder forever. But I will come back. I promise that I will.”

Matt wanted to offer his help, or just follow her without offering, but he knew that was a stupid impulse that must be ignored. Elektra had made it very clear that this was something she needed to do on her own. He couldn’t save her. He couldn’t even help her. He could only wait. This must be how Claire felt; it was not a good feeling.

“We will be here waiting for you,” he promised, his voice shaking a little.

“We will,” Claire said, and then, “Come here.”

Elektra put down her chopsticks and crawled across the floor to where Claire sat on the other side of the coffee table. Their body heat melted together in Matt’s vision, though there was no sound of kissing or spike of sexual energy. Claire held Elektra, held her close. “You too, Matt,” Claire said. He obeyed at once, gathering them both in, their mingled smells and beating hearts. Held them close and prayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! I had no idea where I was going when I started, but I hope you enjoyed both the journey and the destination. This is all for this story although I left it open-ended in case further inspiration hits for more threesome adventures in the future. Or at least some more smut, which let's be honest, is the most fun part.


End file.
